Andrei Kolesnikov, the Kremlin, Moscow
Vladimir Putin lures the singer into Muammar Qaddafi's tent
On Saturday, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, after one-on-one and enlarged-format talks, attended a concert given by Mireille Mathieu, whom they later invited to Qaddafi's Bedouin tent for tea. All this time, they were followed by Kommersant's Andrei Kolesnikov.
The leader of the Libyan Revolution, Muammar Qaddafi, marched into the government's reception building with such a heavy and at the same time guarded step that one could not help feeling that he thought it was his main duty to present himself to people and not demean himself, be it morally or physically.
Prime Minister Putin welcomed him at the entrance to the conference room. They greeted each other simultaneously, literally interrupting each other.
"Good evening", said Mr Qaddafi. "How are you?" asked Mr Putin Putin.
Mr Qaddafi gave him a questioning look.
The one-on-one and enlarged talks did not last long. However, I recall what happened thereafter with a sense of bewilderment and incredulity.
The Libyan leader's huge motorcade (comprised of limousines brought from Tripoli, security vehicles, and communications vehicles followed by more security vehicles) crawled towards the Kremlin, preceded by the Prime Minister's motorcade. It conjured up the image of victorious troops entering a city on the heels of an enemy.
The Libyan leader's motorcade then headed for the Libyan residence, while Mr Putin's entered the Kremlin shortly afterwards and, somewhat surprisingly, halted in front of the State Kremlin Palace, where the great French singer Mireille Mathieu was giving a concert.
The palace was packed. It occurred to me that it had been a long time since Mr Putin had been at the Kremlin, and now he had come to watch Mireille Mathieu's concert. During intermission, the singer was told that the Russian Prime Minister was at her concert and that he was waiting to see her. She was very surprised, as she had never suspected he was there. In the meeting room, the table had already been laid with cakes, tartlets, cookies and tea. They stood at the table and exchanged small talk for a while. Mireille Mathieu said that her concert in Red Square that took place while he was the President had been possible only because of him.
"I know," Vladimir Putin replied.
She said how happy she had been to sing in Red Square (Mr Putin did not comment on that, as he probably doesn't know what singing in Red Square feels like).
"The Russian public has always been famous for its unique warmth," the singer was saying.
"Yes, you are well liked here," Mr Putin replied, somewhat absent-mindedly.
All of a sudden, he was alerted by some secret signals that the person he had been waiting for was somewhere nearby.
"We have Muammar Qaddafi on an official visit here. He would also like to attend your concert," Mr Putin said.
Apparently he meant it to be a surprise.
"Oh, yes, of course," she exclaimed, but I could see in her eyes that she was not sure who it was. After a while the leader of the Libyan Republic marched into the room. He approached Mr Putin, Ms Mathieu, and the young female interpreter, and solemnly shook hands with Mr Putin, acting as if he was seeing him for the first time. Actually, it was only the two women who he was seeing for the first time, while as for the Prime Minister, he was seeing him for perhaps the fifth time that day.
Muammar Qaddafi was standing and staring at Mr Putin and ignoring all the others. "Who is this?" the Prime Minister asked, springing the question on the Libyan leader, while pointing at Ms Mathieu.
The singer flashed a smile at him. She and Muammar Qaddafi looked at each other, and I can vouch for the fact that, at the moment, neither had the faintest idea who the other was.
Vladimir Putin whispered something to Colonel Qaddafi, and the latter said hello to the interpreter and Ms Mathieu. I had a strong feeling that he had taken the singer to be the interpreter: she was a young girl and apparently fit his idea of what a singer should look like. After all, he had girls singing for him in Tripoli from time to time, and the middle-aged woman by her side may well have been the interpreter. At this point, the audience in the hall began to clap their hands impatiently, indicating that intermission was taking a bit too long.
"When were you last in Paris?" the Prime Minister asked the Colonel, and then corrected himself, "Ah, yes, it was quite recently."
"In December of last year," said Mr Qaddafi after conferring with his closest aide, Mr Nouri (who is thought to have the biggest say in all decisions that are made in the country). "And when I was in Paris I met with the French Women's Association."
A pause settled as nobody could figure out why he had said it. Ms Mathieu was looking at him with a touch of pity.
"And not only French women," the Colonel added. "There were other women. A lot of women."
Ms Mathieu went away to prepare for the stage, while Mr Putin told the Colonel that the Kremlin Palace could seat more than a thousand spectators.
I thought that it was a far cry from the Bedouin, tent which the Libyan leader had pitched within a hundred meters of the place, at the Kremlin's Taininsky Garden, next to Building 14.
Mr Putin and Mr Qaddafi entered the hall just a minute before Ms Mathieu took the stage. Initially nobody paid attention to the Colonel and instead looked at Mr Putin. Almost everyone rose to their feet and cheered. Then they spotted the Colonel and many apparently recognised him. There were whistles and shouts of "Bravo!". Mr Qaddafi's appearance was even more of a surprise than Vladimir Putin's - and all this was part of the price of a ticket.
Before sitting down Vladimir Putin spotted an unattended girl of about seven, kissed her and asked where her mother was. The girl sighed.
The lights were dimmed (I don't think the Colonel liked that), the girl's mother was found, and Ms Mathieu came on stage. The second part began with her singing "Moscow Nights" in Russian.
As I watched I wondered how the Colonel was feeling. Perhaps what was happening to him was more of a torture than the American air raid on his residence in the 1980s. He now shows the bombed-out residence to his (not very numerous) guests as a special honour.
What the bombardment had done to his head was becoming more or less clear only now, as he sat in the hall doing the unlikeliest thing: he was listening to a Mireille Mathieu concert rather than fighting for his own life and the life of his people as head of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Republic, as he had been doing ever since that horrific bombing that barred his path to the kind of peaceful life he had suddenly found in this hall.
Now, the man who had stayed in his Tripoli residence for years, and who had reduced the social part of his Paris visit to receiving the not-only-French Women's Association in a Bedouin tent on the grounds of the Elysee Palace, was sitting and slowly nodding his head, not out of shellshock, but to keep time with "Moscow Nights".
From time to time, the concert was interrupted to allow Ms Mathieu to approach the people with fresh flowers who had lined up to greet the living legend. The gifting of flowers took a lot of time, causing the ceremony to stop and start three times, and Ms Mathieu displayed amazing patience each time.
The same could be said of Vladimir Putin and Muammar Qaddafi. When the concert was over and the Colonel and the Prime Minister entered the same snack room (during intermission, the Prime Minister had invited the singer to have tea after the concert), Mr Qaddafi said that he was inviting Vladimir Putin for a tea party in his Bedouin tent, according to Muslim customs.
"Oh, thank you," the Prime Minister said. "Shall we take Ms Mathieu with us?"
The Colonel stared at him in surprise. It was not part of his plans. "Yes," he said.
"Fine", the Prime Minister said. "Shall we take my car?"
"No," said the Colonel.
"Why?" the Prime Minister wondered.
"Because there is no hatch in your car."
Initially, the logic of it escaped me. At the time, I gathered that when the Prime Minister had invited the singer for tea after the concert, he already knew where the tea party would take place.
The Colonel, meanwhile, pointed to his off-white stretch limousine, and I saw a hatch as wide as the passenger seat. Metal handles were fixed on the left-hand and right-hand sides of the roof.
The Colonel could not afford riding in a car without a hatch because American bombing could start at any moment and the door could jam, making the hatch the only way to salvation. The Russian Prime Minister's car did not have a hatch. No, the Colonel could not afford driving in his car. That was now clear to me.
"OK, I'll drive alone," Vladimir Putin shrugged.
Within two minutes, they were near Building 14. Lights flickered in the Bedouin tent under the trees nearby. Mr Putin, Ms Mathieu and Mr Qaddafi ambled towards it and entered the tent, which was richly furnished. The Colonel had brought along electrical heaters, which came in very handy, along with huge leather armchairs and a table. There was no bed, as the Colonel has the good sense not to spend the night in the tent, where he could always be targeted. In his residence in Tripoli, he lives underground where there is a warren of passageways and he feels comfortable.
Mr Putin, who seemed to be enjoying all this, looked at the Colonel and the singer, settled in an armchair, crossed his legs and said:
"When I visited the leader, he received me in a tent. It was the first time I had been in a Bedouin tent. But Bedouins pitching their tent in the Kremlin - that is really something."
He gave the Colonel a mirthful look, but the latter did not even smile.
"What does it prove?" the Prime Minister hastened to add. "It shows that we are drawing closer to each other."
This elicited a nod from the Colonel. Vladimir Putin looked at Mireille Mathieu, who also nodded.
"That's the spirit," Mr Putin said with some relief.
"This is my first time, too," the singer said quietly. She seemed to be totally confused as to what was happening to her and all of them in Moscow. "They say you should make a wish if you come somewhere for the first time."
Vladimir Putin looked at her questioningly. She thought a little and then nodded to indicate that she had made her wish. I had a hunch that she wanted to go home.