"Kommersant": "Politicians from Top Families"
Boris Gryzlov's son and Vladimir Putin's niece will run youth affairs in St Petersburg.
St Petersburg will soon have two non-governmental institutions: a youth Parliament and a youth Government. The most likely candidate to head up Parliament is journalist Dmitry Gryzlov, the son of the State Duma Speaker, and the Government will be headed by the editor of Rossiya Yedinaya magazine and niece of the Russian Prime Minister, Vera Putina.
The initiative of creating a youth Parliament and a youth Government came from Igor Rimmer, deputy of the Petersburg legislative assembly. He articulated it the other day at a meeting of the Youth Council under the city legislature. However, the laws do not permit creating new institutions without formalities, so the Youth Council formed an ad hoc team in order to prepare all the legal paperwork for approval by the city Parliament.
The founding of the ad hoc group was preceded by a "revolution" within the Youth Council. Its chairman Kirill Skladchikov resigned of his own accord yielding his seat to the son of the State Duma Speaker, Dmitry Gryzlov. The reshuffle had been planned back in March when Mr Gryzlov, after losing the municipal elections in St Petersburg, accused the Petersburg authorities of vote-rigging and of links with the underworld. The following day the head of United Russia regional branch and Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Vadim Tyulpanov, asked Dmitry Gryzlov to come to his office. When Mr Gryzlov emerged from the office he was already a member of the party. During the talks he had been promised a seat on the political council of the local branch and a job supervising youth policy.
"I want the Council to be made up of active young people with brains who are not obsessed with their own careers. Every party and public movement, including "the dissent", will be offered to delegate several representatives," Dmitry Gryzlov told Kommersant. He said that the opposition could "contribute revolutionary ideas" which could then be "corrected". "I will be able to present our initiatives to the legislative assembly clearly", Dmitry Gryzlov said, admitting that he was planning to become the head of the would-be youth Parliament.
Mr Gryzlov Jr. said he may have a helpmate in the person of Vera Putina, the editor of the magazine Rossiya Yedinaya and the niece of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. She would take care of drafting the legislation required to create the youth Parliament within the framework of the ad hoc group for the preparation of documents to create the new structures which she heads up. She told Kommersant that she had been offered to head up the youth Government by Igor Rimmer. "It was the current situation that prompted me to go into youth politics, Vera Putina said. We are active young people and we must lead our peers". Earlier, addressing a meeting of the Youth Council, she said that "addressing propaganda issues" was one of the main problems. "As a representative of the media and PR I believe we should try to create the country's image abroad", she said. Asked by Kommersant about her kinship with Vladimir Putin she said: "Put that question to him. I act as an independent person, my family life does not come into it".
By Yevgenia Pastukhova
