FACTBOX- Russia's powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin

(Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will defend his handling of the economic crisis on Monday when he takes questions from lawmakers in parliament.

Here are some key facts about Putin.

* Putin was born on October 7, 1952 in St Petersburg, then called Leningrad. A former spy in East Germany, he rose to head the KGB's successor organisation, the FSB, before being chosen as prime minister by the late President Boris Yeltsin in August 1999.

* He became acting Russian president when Yeltsin stepped down on December 31, 1999. He was elected president in March 2000 after a huge public relations campaign.

* During his eight years as Kremlin chief until 2008, he crafted a political system hugely dependent on his own personal authority. The opposition was sidelined and the Kremlin imposed tight control on the media.

* Putin presided over the longest Russian economic boom in a generation, helped by high prices for oil, gas and metals. Russian GDP totalled $1.7 trillion in 2008, up from less than $200 billion in 1999 and many millions of Russians saw their living standards rise.

Critics say Putin failed to use the boom to reform Russia and note that millions of Russians still live in poverty.

* Putin has prided himself on bringing stability to Russia after the chaos that accompanied the fall of the Soviet Union, an event he said was the "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."

Just months after Putin stepped down as president, Russia was hit by the worst economic crisis for at least a decade, raising concerns about the stability of the system he crafted.