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Up the backstairs, buzzed in by a security guard, through the parking lot, into an elevator, through a hallway.

But long before Putin’s backstairs embrace of Trump’s candidacy, Syria had illustrated the limitations of a president who always tiptoed through the tulips.

Instead, his columns were narratives of creation, abandonment and restoration that lovingly highlighted quirky design and backstairs gossip from decades past.

Next to it was his study, where he wrote by the light of a single candle and received the “common” people through the backstairs, which he also used to come and go unnoticed.

In the mid-1800s, members of the Wood family and their guests used the grander front staircase, and the backstairs were used by servants responsible for many of the household tasks.