Why is Russia's Vladimir Putin stockpiling so much gold?

I can't imagine it means anything cheerful that Vladimir Putin, the Russian czar, is stockpiling gold as fast as he can get his hands on it. 

According to the World Gold Council, Russia has more than doubled its gold reserves in the past five years. Putin has taken advantage of the financial crisis to build the world's fifth-biggest gold pile in a handful of years, and is buying about half a billion dollars' worth every month. 

It emerged last month that financial gurus George Soros and John Paulson had also increased their bullion exposure, but it's Putin that's really caught my eye. 

No one else in the world plays global power politics as ruthlessly as Russia's chilling strongman, the man who effectively stole a Super Bowl ring from Bob Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, when they met in Russia some years ago. ... 

We may be about to enter a much more turbulent and dangerous era of power politics and international competition. 

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