More than 2,000 students stood together and held white sheets of paper in the air to form a human portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin outside Chelyabinsk’s Traktor stadium on Thursday, local news outlet Chelyabinsk Today reported.
The life installation had been rehearsed and took only minutes to complete, the report said, adding that the students had initially hoped to meet the president in person.
“When it became clear that he wouldn't come, we decided to organize a creative flash mob in support of the president,” one of the participants, identified only by his first name Dmitry, was cited as saying.
The stunt was part of a three-day gathering of student associations titled ?€?Labor Brought Victory!?€? in the city.
With popularity ratings for the president at a record high — reaching almost 90 percent in October according to state-run pollster VTsIOM ?€” Putin's image also inspired a Russian library in Krasnoyarsk to extend his likeness to the visually impaired.
A? 3-D portrait of the president on display in the library allows visually impaired Russians to feel their way across Putin's face, the local news website Prmira.ru reported Thursday.