Vladimir Putin's Birth Chart

Whatever the minute, four planets are in Libra: the Sun at 13°55′ Libra, Saturn at 17°27′ Libra, Neptune at 21°09′ Libra and Mercury at 23°10′ Libra. Venus is at 11°42′ Scorpio, Mars at 26°31′ Sagittarius, Jupiter retrograde at 19°44′ Taurus, Uranus at 18°23′ Cancer and Pluto at 22°43′ Leo. The Moon is the only body that changed sign that day: it left Taurus for Gemini at 4:14 AM Moscow time, so five of the six times put it in Gemini.

A Libra stellium with Saturn in it

Astrologers read a concentration of planets in Libra as attention to balance, negotiation and form: a habit of weighing before acting and of reading the other side. Tradition places the Sun in its fall in Libra and Saturn in its exaltation there, the sign where Saturn is said to work best, and the two are 3°31′ apart. A Sun–Saturn conjunction is read as seriousness, self-discipline and a strong sense of responsibility, and an exalted Saturn as patience and respect for rules and procedure. Mercury, 2°00′ from Neptune, is read as subtle and imaginative in thought and speech, with a tendency to keep things ambiguous.

The Moon in Gemini

A Gemini Moon is read as curious, quick and adaptable, with feelings handled through words and ideas and a need for variety. At 9:30 AM the Moon is at 2°54′ Gemini; it moves about half a degree an hour, so the candidate times between 9:30 AM and 4:35 PM place it between 2°54′ Gemini and 6°47′ Gemini. Only the 2:47 AM rectification, earlier than the ingress, gives a Taurus Moon, at 29°11′ Taurus.

Saturn square Uranus, Mercury sextile Pluto

Saturn squares Uranus at 18°23′ Cancer with an orb of 0°56′, and Mercury sextiles Pluto (0°27′). Both hold at every candidate time: Saturn and Uranus barely move in a day, and the faster Mercury keeps the sextile within 0°55′ of exact from the earliest time to the latest. Astrologers read Saturn square Uranus as a tension between order and change, holding on and breaking away; it is a slow aspect that people born in the same months share. Mercury sextile Pluto is read as a mind drawn to what is hidden and to the levers behind events.

DD, "dirty data", is the grade Lois Rodden gave to records with two or more conflicting times, none verified. Putin's record has six. The 9:30 AM figure came in an email of May 10, 2000, from Stef de Groot, webmaster of a website called President Vladimir V. Putin, who said it was taken from his Soviet birth certificate; Astro-Databank has not seen the document, and several correspondents told it that Russian birth records do not carry a time. Another early source, Claudia von Schierstedt citing Spiegel "archives" in the magazine Meridian, gave the time as unknown. The 1:00 PM figure reached astrologers through a chain of people, starting from a reporter's private conversation with him. The other four were rectified: astrologers chose the time that best fitted the events of his life, and they reached four different answers.

Cast in turn, the six times give four different rising signs (Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Virgo), and four of the five alternatives put every planet in a different house from the 9:30 AM chart. Starkman's rectification, 9:35:52 AM, is the only one close to the reported time: it keeps Scorpio rising, at 4°07′ Scorpio, and moves just Saturn and Pluto into the next house. Only 2:47 AM makes a night chart. If you want to use one of these times, the table shows what you would be committing to.

At 59°55′ N the signs rise at very different speeds. On October 7, 1952, Scorpio took 3 hours 14 minutes to clear the eastern horizon, while Pisces and Aries took 29 minutes each. Signs from Cancer to Sagittarius rise slowly in the far north and the rest quickly, which is why a chart cast in Leningrad can keep its rising sign for hours at one time of day and lose it within minutes at another.

The reported 9:30 AM falls early in the long Scorpio stretch: Scorpio began to rise at 9:08 AM, so a birth 22 minutes earlier gives Libra rising DD time. After that the Ascendant moved slowly: 9°12′ an hour, which is 6.5 minutes for each degree, and Scorpio stayed up until 12:23 PM. The Midheaven, whose speed does not depend on latitude, was turning 15°22′ an hour.

If 9:30 AM were right, the chart would have Venus in the first house, Pluto 1°23′ from the Midheaven, and three of the four Libra planets in the twelfth DD time. Readings built on the 9:30 time would lean on all three; none of them can be relied on until the time is documented. Saturn sits 2 minutes from moving into the 11th house and Pluto 6 minutes from the 9th house, which is exactly what Starkman's slightly later time does.