"Nezavisimaya Gazeta": “Volgograd Region companies sign contracts with Germany as Putin demonstrates translation skills”
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin managed to demonstrate his fluency in German at the 74th International Green Week Berlin exhibition, Volgograd Region Governor Nikolai Maksyuta told a press conference. The exhibition took place January 16 through 25 in Germany.
Putin and German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner visited the pavilion featuring products by Volgograd Region companies, Maksyuta said. "I was pleased to see Putin, who speaks German fairly well, interpreting my speech for the German Agriculture Minister, and I thanked him for taking the role of translator," Maksyuta noted. Interestingly, some local commentators say that Putin's translation was aimed more at Aigner than at Maksyuta.
Nevertheless, either Putin's translation was inefficient or Maksyuta's speech on the Volgograd Region's investment potential failed to persuade. During the visit to Berlin, the region's delegation of 40 members managed, apart from bringing back 33 exhibition medals, to sign only two contracts, which dealt with deliveries of pumpkin seed extract and locally produced vegetable oil to Western Germany.
But the Prime Minister's translation skills were not the only subject at Maksyuta's press conference, which concentrated on the results of the delegation's one week-long visit to Germany. With only two contracts signed, the governor was forced to comment on the appropriateness of sending a delegation of 40 regional officials and directors from local industrial and agricultural companies enduring hard times amid the current economic crisis.
"The fact that exhibition visitors found the products featured by our companies appealing does not guarantee further contracts," Maksyuta admitted. He said the absence of proper certificates for food products, which accounted for most of the region's goods, would prevent them from entering the European market.
So, given the lack of required certificates for the region's food products, what was the sense for the Volgograd Region's exhibitors to participate in the Berlin exhibition? It still remains a question. . Some local experts say the governor's visit to Berlin was aimed not so much at promoting regional products in the European market but rather at having another meeting with Putin. There have been rumors that Maksyuta, whose term as Governor ends in December 2009, is not much favored by the Kremlin. This could explain his eagerness to meet with the prime minister, which is apparently easier to accomplish in Berlin than in Moscow.
Interestingly, after returning from Germany, Maksyuta has continued to offer his "German" impressions that contradict the current state of affairs in Russia and, particularly, in the Volgograd Region. "No signs of crisis or talks of the upheaval are seen there. People continue to produce, buy and sell goods," Maksyuta was quoted by a local newspaper as saying. Regional officials and local journalists can only guess which places the governor visited to have failed to notice any effects of the current economic recession in Germany.
