Russian President spearfishing with pneumatic speargun

[popgun pete]

Russian President Vladimir Putin on a recent recreational break has been spearfishing for Pike and there are now a few videos on the Internet showing him doing it. In this one, which is a slightly different compilation of sequences, we see him coming back to the boat to hand over his catch.



I was interested to see what type of speargun he was using and here we can see it is an Omer AIR XII of a medium length. I must confess that I was expecting to see a domestic model such as a "Taimen" when I searched around for a video showing enough of the gun in order to be able to identify it. Fitted with a horizontal reel it appears to be the 70 cm model, although given the grip handle adds on to the rear of that gun it may be the 50 cm model. You can see the name on the side of the gun very clearly at 1.43 seconds into the 1.58 second Youtube video.

 

[SubSub]

I think he went all-in Omer, also the suit appears to be a Omer product.

 

[popgun pete]

Yes, everything looks new and it may have all been purchased in one combined order to save time if this was a relatively recent decision to go spearfishing on this trip. Some months ago he was photographed with a large Pike, but that was caught on a line and I don't remember any references to spearfishing before in the media releases concerning his recreational activities that we occasionally see in the West. Interestingly this one made all the radio news bulletins, that is how I heard about it, but not the TV news.