Moving to the beat of 1990s pop hit "American Boy", Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's stiff dance moves became an immediate viral hit on YouTube today.
Sporting a form-fitting silver jacket and open collar, Mr Medvedev somewhat awkwardly wiggles his hips and kicks up his heels with other party guests in the half-minute clip posted late last night.
The performance attracted mixed but plentiful reactions from Russians, with nearly 300 comments only hours after it was posted.
"It looks like Medvedev's swallowed a stick," one viewer commented.
"You dance like my father!" twitter user Stacey Uliss wrote on Mr Medvedev's page, to which the tech-savvy, 45-year-old president promptly posted a good-natured response.
"Age-wise that seems to be the case," he tweeted, admitting the tune and his dance moves were dated.
"We were partying at a meeting with (former) classmates a year ago. The dances/music are still those from the past."
The Russian pop song that set him grooving topped charts in 1990 when its lyrics about escaping with a foreigner struck a chord amid the economic hardship and uncertainty accompanying the collapse of the Soviet Union.
An avid Twitter user, Mr Medvedev is seen as more liberal and Western-leaning than his mentor and current prime minister, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer who steered him into the country's top job in 2008.
Kremlin spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said the video had probably been posted by a caterer at the party, saying it showed an unfortunate lack of respect for privacy.
Mr Putin, who could not run for a third term as president after his 2000-2008 rule, is still seen by most Russians as the man pulling the strings.
He has not ruled out a bid to return to the Kremlin in the March 2012 election, saying he will decide with Mr Medvedev which of the two will stand as candidate.
Agencies