Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrates his birthday today, he is turning 72. He will celebrate his personal holiday for the 21st time in the highest state post.

As in previous years, the head of state's schedule remains working. As a rule, Putin begins to receive congratulations from foreign leaders in the morning - in the form of telegrams and by phone. A series of closed working meetings are planned for the first half of the day. And in the evening, Putin will meet with the heads of state of the CIS: they are gathering in Moscow ahead of the summit scheduled for Tuesday.

As the head of state's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said, the president cannot afford even one day of proper rest: "Papers are still coming, the country is still going on, somewhere it's freezing, somewhere it's hot <…>, somewhere there are transport disruptions, somewhere the international situation is not developing as we would like."

Even within a day, the president does not have specific work and rest hours - if necessary, he receives reports at night.  As a result, as the Kremlin noted, Putin "is practically on duty 24/7".

Only once did Putin make an exception on his birthday: he took a day off and flew into the remote taiga. It was 2014. According to Peskov, Putin was then "300-400 km from the nearest dwelling", so the conditions were by no means "stationary". The head of state himself later admitted that he walked almost 9 km through the mountains.