When Naomi met Vladimir/GQ.com

By Naomi Campbell

Last November, the world's first tiger summit in St Petersburg ended with £330m pledged to make the great cat worth more alive than dead. The summit was attended by Vladimir Putin, Wen Jiabao, Leonardo DiCaprio, World Bank chief Robert Zoellick and Naomi Campbell. During the summit, Naomi spoke with the Russian prime minister.

Naomi Campbell: You're in pretty good physical shape. How do you manage to keep yourself so fit?
Vladimir Putin: Probably the same way you do.

Actually, I don't work out as much as I should, but I do believe that it's a healthy mind as well as a healthy body that keeps me fit, sound and calm.
Exactly. You just answered your own question.

What's your fitness regime?
I go to the gym, I swim daily and from time to time I meet with friends and do extra-curricular stuff. I had a good work-out just the day before yesterday.

I've seen the picture of you doing the butterfly stroke and, since I've been living in Russia, I noticed most people here swim the butterfly. I can't swim the butterfly, but I was just in the Dead Sea in Jordan and it was the first time I floated in my whole life.
You can swim any way you like in the Dead Sea, actually. But I was swimming butterfly because the water was cold. It was one of the famous Siberian rivers and the water was something like 16˚C. My idea was to get out of the water as soon as possible.

You go for extreme sports like bareback riding, white-water rafting, motor racing, skiing, hunting. Is it a thrill, or just showing off? You must have had injuries.
Back in my student days, I broke a finger when I was mucking about during exercise, but I've been lucky recently.

In the summer you were photographed on a Harley-Davidson at a bikers' festival in Ukraine. How were you received by the bikers, the Night Wolves?
Well, these are really cool guys, really tough guys. One of them was a really courageous person who travelled a few thousand kilometres on a two-wheeler bike. He's a handicapped guy with only one leg - he lost it somewhere in Yugoslavia during the war. I'm not the tough guy, those guys are.

You obviously make a great impression on women. How do you feel about the students who posed for you in the calendar? [Female students at Moscow State University in Russia produced rival calendars for Putin's 58th birthday. First,a group of journalism students in lingerie posed for a calendar with suggestive captions, such as: "You put out forest fires, but I'm still burning." Then another group hit back, posing in black, with their mouths taped shut.]

I like the girls a lot, they're beautiful. I like the calendar but it's not the most important thing. As for the other one, well, in almost any country, probably in Russia in particular, it's fashionable to criticise people in power. If you come out in support of someone like me, you're going to be accused of trying to ingratiate yourself. The girls in the erotic calendar were courageous and they were not scared. As student journalists, they couldn't fail to understand what might have been said to them after doing this. Nonetheless, they were not deterred and did the calendar anyway. So, frankly, that's what I liked the most.

You've been known to attend bare-knuckle fights. Ever been in one?
No, it's not my sport; since I was 14, I've done judo. But the bare-knuckle fight I attended was very impressive. These guys are tough. I watched the Russian, French and British teams and each and every one of these athletes deserves great credit. There are even women who do it.

Big women?
Not big, just strong women.

I'd like to see one of those.

Now, Vladimir, you're regarded as a tough leader, so why has the Russian prime minister decided to take part in the Global Tiger Initiative?
It's simple. I once saw a TV programme about Russian and US activists in the Far East with people engaged with tiger preservation. I was impressed by what I saw, so I decided to take a closer look, and started reading about the show and talking to experts. I decided support needed to be given to these activists, so I pulled together a programme, sponsored by extra funds. The total allocation was $5m and then we started expanding the programme, which now includes black bears, white bears and other species.

I was hoping to see a tiger on stage today. Actually, I'm hoping to see a white bear as I've lived in Russia for two years. I know you've come face to face with a tiger in the wild - how does that feel?
It felt good for me, but not all of my Russian colleagues felt the same way. When I came to the reserve, a tiger was caught in a special trap, which was designed especially not to hurt the animal but to enable them to study it. The reporters from the Russian station Channel One were there to broadcast the story and were sitting opposite the tiger in the trap. But the tiger was smart, and as soon as the cameras started rolling, he stuck his paw through the trap. You could say the reporters were afraid. We later managed to trap the tiger, so we put it to sleep with a tranquiliser and the scientists managed to do what they had to do, took a sample of blood and even put a special collar on to track it. It turned out it was a female tiger and blood sample analysis showed that she was pregnant. Shortly after that, we got pictures from video cameras that were hidden in the woods, which showed the same female tiger with two cubs. So I had the very best impressions of tigers in the wild.

The summit is a high-level event, but how difficult was it to get so many leaders to St Petersburg?
Not at all, and practically everyone responded immediately. We gathered previously as a limited group and the conversation became very relaxed and casual very quickly. There was an atmosphere of trust and all colleagues spoke very sincerely about the need to preserve nature and preserve tigers. It is our hope that measures discussed today will truly be implemented.

As a result of the summit, participants agreed on a strategy to help save the tiger and take all necessary measures to make it happen. Do you think this will bring an increase in the number of tigers, will there be less poaching, and instead of having just 3,200 tigers in the world, will we soon have more?
I'm sure we'll succeed. I see that my colleagues from other countries are determined to resolve this issue. Moreover, certain major steps are already being taken by Indian colleagues and other countries to help. In Bangladesh, for instance, they are doing work that is proving to be very interesting for us. It's the first time we heard about their initiatives and we will certainly take advantage of their positive experience.