Russian President Vladimir Putin received an uncommon reward for his seventieth birthday on Friday: a tractor.
Because the leaders of a number of ex-Soviet nations met on the Czarist-era Konstantin Palace in St. Petersburg, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus introduced Putin with a present certificates for the automobile.
Tractors have been the delight of Belarusian business since Soviet occasions.
Lukashenko, an autocratic chief who has dominated the ex-Soviet nation with an iron hand for practically three many years whereas cultivating a person of the individuals picture, instructed reporters he used a mannequin in his backyard just like the one he gifted Putin.
It wasn't clear how the Russian chief responded to the reward, which Lukashenko's workplace revealed.
Putin did not point out the reward in televised remarks at first of the assembly when he talked about the necessity to talk about methods of settling conflicts between ex-Soviet nations.
He additionally emphasised the necessity to trade info to struggle terrorism, unlawful medicine and different crime.
The leaders of the Commonwealth of Impartial States, a free alliance of ex-Soviet nations, have one other gathering to attend subsequent week in Kazakhstan's capital of Astana.
In the meantime a pro-Russia group in Belgrade, Serbia put up a digital billboard for the Russian President's milestone birthday.
"Comfortable birthday to President Vladimir Putin from the Serb brethren!", it learn.