Every year on 19 January, at Orthodox Epiphany, Putin traditionally pulled his blue trunks up to his chest and bathed in an ice hole. Russians watched their national leader with bated breath, proud with the last of their strength. Few knew that the ice wasn't real, just scenery, and the water in the ice hole wasn't river water but room temperature, and the filming wasn't under the open sky but in a cosy swimming pool.
