Vladimir Putin met with citizens groups
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had a meeting with the leaders of political parties and representatives of citizens' organisations to hear their comments on the Government's anti-crisis programme. "We will take into account any constructive, reasonable and feasible proposals regardless of who makes them," Mr Putin said surveying the table at which Sergei Mironov, Boriz Gryzlov, Gennady Zyuganov and Vladimir Zhirinovsky were sitting. Mr Putin said that "we cannot pretend that nothing is happening", assured those present that Russia would emerge strengthened from the crisis, before giving the floor to his guests.
The journalists, however, were allowed to hear only one of the guests, Secretary of the Public Chamber, Yevgeny Velikhov, who spoke immediately after Mr Putin. But after his speech they felt that they had had enough.
The member of the Academy of Sciences began with an overview of the economic situation in the country. He said that "production decline has slowed down sharply, currency exchange rates have stabilised", "foreign trade is balanced", "crisis management has become much more effective" and that "the scale of the problems in the regions has diminished". Mr Velikhov sounded as if he was reading his prepared text and was "pretending that nothing was happening". But that was not the case. Something was happening, otherwise Mr Velikhov wouldn't have suddenly started to spout concrete proposals designed to change the country's life for the better.
"We should strengthen the solidarity of the nation," Mr Velikhov urged. "The level of savings is high enough to prevent a dramatic decline of living standards... Russia cannot renounce being a strong player in the market... We can be real leaders... We should speed up bureaucratic procedures".
Unfortunately, Mr Velikhov's speech was becoming more and more intermittent. He was sitting to one side of the Prime Minister and was leaning over towards him and away from the microphone. As a result, only scraps of the prominent nuclear scientist's speech reached the journalists.
"We should restore the culture of knowledge," Mr Velikhov pressed on. Create a special TV channel modelled on "Discovery". Nano-bio and cognitive technologies, he blurted out. It is important not to lose them. We were in the top five, and now the share of hi-tech products is 0.2%, but on the other hand, we have great opportunities... Our forests rot and burn... Timber... a ticket to public baths costs 1,000 roubles... Brazilian sprats.
Mr Putin, propping his head with his hand was staring vacuously in front of him. Some of the journalists giggled making it still more difficult to keep track of Velikhov's speech. Meanwhile he continued:
"Furthermore, protein additives... BP manager... environmental awareness.... We have the largest stocks of green biomass."
"Some proposals are very specialised," Mr Putin remarked, looking somewhat confused, after Mr Velikhov finished his speech.
Noting that he liked Mr Velikhov's idea about "strengthening the solidarity of the nation" Mr Putin sprang a surprise on the nation by announcing the news which ITAR TASS immediately started to transmit:
"Judging from what is happening in the economy we will soon see a slowdown of inflation and consequently easier access to credit resources," Mr Putin predicted.
Mr Velikhov was happy and the floor was passed to the next guest.
By Alexander Latyshev
