Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin appears to have developed a taste for marine science. In the last week he has assisted a whale research project and taken a spin around the bottom of the world’s deepest lake, according to state news source RIA Novosti.

On Friday he paid a visit on scientists researching whale behaviour and migration and affixed a satellite transmitter to a “white whale named Dasha”, likely a Beluga. Putin apparently expressed concern that Dasha might eat him.

“She won’t eat us but could splash us with cold water,” he was told. “Probably if she gets angry,” said Putin, before adding after attaching the transmitter, “Don’t be angry anymore.”

On Saturday Putin spent four hours in a Mir submarine diving in Lake Baikal. Speaking to journalists from under the lake’s surface he expressed surprise at the water’s lack of clarity (story, picture here).

“The water, of course, is clean from an ecological point of view but in fact it’s a plankton soup, or so I called it,” he said (AFP).

Asked if he would now be going into space Putin echoed the feelings of many marine scientists in saying, “There’s enough work on Earth.” (Guardian.)

Image: Lake Baikal / NASA