AP Photo

In 1996, Vladimir Putin and a group of friends and acquaintances from St. Petersburg would gather in an idyllic lakeside setting -- barely an hour and a half north of the city. The location, on the Karelian Isthmus between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, was only an hour and 20 minute's drive to the Finnish border, in an area that has variously been part of the Swedish Empire, the tsarist Russian empire, independent Finland, the Soviet Union, and now Russia. This was a wonderful place for Mr. Putin to reflect on the twists and turns of fate and Russia's evolving borders over the centuries. It also put Mr. Putin far away from the Russian center,  Moscow.