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Dmitry Medvedev's first Address to the Federal Assembly was more verbose than that of his predecessor. The duration of his speech, the number of characters, words and sentences exceeded Vladimir Putin's statistics, although Dmitry Medvedev spoke more slowly (see table). The new President's speech was punctuated by applause 56 times, compared with Mr Putin's record of 47 (2006).
For the second year in a row, the most frequently used word was "we": 92 times (60 times in Vladimir Putin's 2007 Address). Dmitry Medvedev also spoke at length about the country's future, thereby making the second most frequent word (used 57 times) "will be" and its derivatives. For comparison: Vladimir Putin, in his first address in 2000, mentioned the future 15 times and in 2007, 16 times. Dmitry Medvedev is rather less interested in the past: the word "was" and its derivatives were used 16 times.
As Presidential addresses go, Mr Medvedev devoted an unusually high amount of attention to "freedom" (used 29 times, together with its derivatives) and "the school" (18 times). In 2007, Vladimir Putin used the word "school" only twice and "freedom" 4 times. The word "crisis" and its derivatives were used 17 times. Keeping with tradition, the President referred to "Russia" 44 times. Other countries mentioned by Dmitry Medvedev included: the U.S. (6 times), South Ossetia (5 times), Abkhazia (3 times), Georgia (twice), Serbia (once), and China (once). During his eight years as President, Vladimir Putin had somewhat different priorities: he mentioned the United States, Ukraine and Belarus more frequently than any other countries.
"Economics" and words with that root were used 37 times in the 2008 Address (compared with 34 times in 2007), and "policy" was used 33 times (versus 23 times in 2007). The President frequently referred to "the state" (28 times) and "society" (23 times). Mr Medvedev seems to be less concerned with the problems of the individual, using the word "man" only 14 times.
