Journalists of one of the authoritative American publications told the story of Mikhail Korotkov, that for years as a photographer he was obsessed with the idea of hunting for an “unusual beast”. Actually, the man wanted the armored train of Russian President Vladimir Putin to get into the lens of his camera.

Mikhail Korotkov is only 31 years old, but he has spent much of his life tracking and photographing the Russian dictator's special armored train. It was he who was the enthusiastic photographer who, in 2018, published a photo of Putin’s elite vehicle online, stating that “mere mortals don’t drive like this.”

“Ghost train” paranoid dictator

As the photographer himself noted, finding and fixing the train of the Kremlin dwarf with the help of a camera lens was terrifying and exciting. Korotkov described Putin's armored vehicle as something like a spooky “ghost train” with a secret schedule, no locomotive identification numbers and always closed windows.

Interestingly, one of the wagons has an unusual dome on top. In all likelihood, special communications equipment is located there.

I was so deep in my hobby. I was trying to get really rare photos. And for me the challenge was so huge that I didn’t think about the consequences,” the photographer said in an interview.