President Vladimir Putin is the constant hero of TV news programmes in Russia. But in 2015, he was also the star of some epic TV documentaries.
Two were produced by Saida Medvedeva, a publicity-shy, Kazakh-born director, who in the past few years has come to be the Kremlin’s favourite film-maker.
President – a two-and-a-half-hour documentary – was aired on state channel Rossiya 1 in April, to mark the 15th year of Mr Putin’s rule. It has a short episode near the end about an encounter in 2005 between the Russian president and a donkey on Mount Athos in Greece, one of the holy sites of Orthodox Christianity.
An Orthodox monk recalls how the donkey ran ahead of a car being driven by Mr Putin, on his way to visit a monastery. It waited for him outside and ran ahead of him again on the return journey. Eventually, the donkey got tired and stopped by the roadside.
Mr Putin stopped too, and for several minutes man and donkey remained still, contemplating one another.