Robert Amsterdam

From Reuters best photos of the past 24 hours, residents of a housing development seeking to prevent expansion of a nearby property subversively name a park after President Putin, and plaster his photo everywhere to ensure that development is ground to a halt. If anything, this must be a true measure of a firmly established cult of personality - I suppose if you wanted to have a building swiftly demolished in Russia, you could name it after Bush...

REUTERS/Eduard Korniyenko

A man walks past past a tree bearing a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin near a new housing development in the southern Russian city of Stavropol April 11, 2007. Local residents named a grove next to an expanding housing development in Stravopol after Putin and put up his portraits to save the trees from a construction company's axe, Russian media reported. Putin's portrait served as a guarantee for the trees' survival, reported the Izvestia daily quoting residents. The Russian reads: "Grove in the name of V.V. Putin." Picture taken April 11, 2007. (RUSSIA)