Vladimir Putin has giggling fit over minister's export faux pas

The world has seen him shooting whales with crossbows, riding horses shirtless and singing a Fats Domino song to Gerard Depardieu, but video of Vladimir Putin giggling has stunned and amused millions of viewers.

The Russian president is known for his dour presentation and is practically never seen smiling in public.

But Putin could not hold back his laughter after his agriculture minister Alexander Tkachov made a faux pas when speaking about pork exports.

"(Germany) sends half their pork to export. Look at Germany's numbers: five and a half million tonnes of pork produced a year, of that almost three million is exported to all countries, to China, to Indonesia, to Japan, Korea, and so on," Tkachov said.

But a sniggering Putin could not help but interject.

"Indonesia is a Muslim country. They do not eat pork there," Putin said.

An embarrassed Tkachov jokes back: "They will."

"No, they will not," said Putin before crumbling into fits of giggles, burying his face in his hands as he laughs.

It was an unusual sight for the Russian president, and viewers worldwide were thrown by his joyous reaction.

It's no accident that Putin is known for being stony-faced. Smiling without reason is not a universal quality, with some countries treating grins as sinister.

A study by the Polish Academy of Sciences showed how some cultures perceived smiling people to be unintelligent or untrustworthy.

Australia joined Switzerland and the Philippines at the top of the charts for nationalities associating smiling with honesty.

But Russia was at the other end of the scale, along with Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Indonesia and the Maldives.

It goes some of the way to explaining Putin's personal popularity in Russia, in spite of the fact he can come across as cold and uncharismatic to Western eyes.