Russian hinterland: Where Putin’s propaganda works

Vyacheslav stands in a wolf’s maw. The gray mouth of the animal is half open, the white fangs flash on the left and right of the approximately 50-year-old man.

The red eye above the throat looks angry at the visitors. Vyacheslav’s blue-grey eyes, on the other hand, are steady and alert, but not aggressive.

The “Wolf’s Den” is his territory and Vyacheslav is proud of the stylish ambience of the bar on the outskirts of Kalyazin, even if its predecessor looked even better in his opinion. When the bar burned down years ago, nobody from the biker club actually wanted to build something up again. “But the surgeon urged us to do it, so we got down to it,” says Vyacheslav.