Video: Town burns effigy of Vladimir Putin astride MH17 plane Bonfire Night, or Fawkes Night, is marked every year in the UK on November 5, commemorating a failed 1605 plot to blow up the House of Lords. A giant effigy of Russian President Vladimir Putin In the past, the town's bonfire societies have torched guys including several popes, Angela Merkel and Osama bin Laden as part of the tongue-in-cheek celebrations. Last year, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, was burned, and in 2012, David Cameron and Nick Clegg went up in flames in what the organisers describe as the world's greatest bonfire event.