According to the international media, "Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili claims that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is still set on killing him as part of his plan to restore the Soviet empire." To bolster his claim Mikheil Saakashvili cites a remark made by Nicolas Sarkozy, after an angry Mr Putin told him he wanted to see his Georgian counterpart strung up by a certain part of his body. Psychoanalysts point out that "an acute fear of castration may lead to the narcissistic exaggeration of the phallus and be a hindrance to independence, autonomy and healthy sense of pride". Mikheil Saakashvili's lamentable mental state clearly bears out Freud's thesis.
Vladimir Putin, however, was indifferent to the complexes he had brought out in Mikheil Saakashvili, in fact, he aggravated them by visiting Abkhazia and indulging his nostalgia: "I first came here after working with a student construction team and earning about 800 roubles, a huge sum at the time. I remember using the money to buy an overcoat. I wore it for about 15 years. The rest of the money we happily spent in Gagra. That's something to remember. Those were good times. I have fond memories of them." These reminiscences are likely to make Mikheil Saakashvili even more inclined to narcissistic phallic exaggeration and will no doubt be even more of a hindrance to his independence and autonomy.
In the spirit of "tandemocracy" Dmitry Medvedev sent a derogatory message to his Ukrainian colleague, Viktor Yushchenko, informing him that he would postpone sending new Russia's Ambassador (Mikhail Zurabov) to Kiev. By taking such an action, Dmitry Medvedev was probably hoping to provoke in the Ukrainian President the same complex that afflicts the Georgian President.
The Russian President was very active on internal security affairs, starting the week by telling Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika to examine the activities of the state corporations created under President Vladimir Putin. Such an instruction, when issued directly to the Prosecutor General, is usually a sign that a lot of stealing is going on.
The only person who dared challenge Dmitry Medvedev was Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin who said, "It is too soon to comment. I have not seen any proposals regarding reorganisation." Alexei Kudrin's readiness to stick up for state corporations is most probably connected with Dmitry Medvedev's recent remark in response to the Minister's claim that Russia may have to eat humble pie for another fifty years (what made him say it is a mystery). He asked Mr Kudrin to watch his language or resign. Stung by this, Alexei Kudrin, in the spirit of the poet Brodsky ("if Yevtushenko is against collective farms I am for them") threw his weight behind state corporations.
After fending off Medvedev's attack on "collective farms" the Minister launched into a detailed discussion and said: "History has never seen such massive liquidity as we have today. The Federal Reserve's money supply actually doubled in 6 months." The Minister put this down to the "unprecedented amount of money printed for the Federal Reserve by the world's major banks".
To date it has been assumed that the Federal Reserve was printing money itself while no other banks except those in the US, were known to print dollars. Perhaps the Minister meant to say that major world banks were sucking liquidity out of their economies and just as enthusiastically pumping it into the American economy: but then this is a case of somewhat misplaced psychological projection. It is quite possible that Alexei Kudrin considers pumping money out of his home country into the US the main goal of any financial activity, but other banks in the world may not share his opinion.
There is less certainty about the future trajectory of another ambitious Minister, Andrei Fursenko, who is in charge of education. Mr Medvedev, being a benign ruler, is somewhat reticent in expressing his anger. Where Emperor Paul I proclaimed Le sang coulera! ("Let blood be spilled!"), Dmitry Medvedev says: "I support the idea of setting up an ad hoc commission." Seeing that the spring university admissions campaign in 2009 was a dismal failure, the Russian President backed the idea of creating a commission to discuss the results of the Unified State Exam programme launched in Russia this year. So the ball is now in Minister Fursenko's court, and everybody is waiting to see whether the young reformer can make a conservative President eat humble pie.
The idea of creating a Drunken Commission (this was how the commission that looks into the misdeeds committed by officials while under the influence of alcohol is known) met with an enthusiastic reaction reminiscent of 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev launched his notorious anti-alcohol campaign. It is clear that people miss the atmosphere of perestroika and "acceleration". The commission to combat drunkenness and alcoholism has yet to be properly formed, but it is already being flooded with proposals.
The upper house of parliament has developed a draft national anti-alcohol policy. Senator Valentina Petrenko who introduced it revealed that "restrictions on the sale of alcohol would be introduced for pregnant women, nursing mothers as well as people addicted to alcohol and suffering from other diseases". It is not always easy to tell by looking at a customer whether he belongs to one of the above categories, so their policy would, logically, lead to the issue of alcopassports certifying that the bearer is not pregnant, does not breast feed and does not suffer from any afflictions that are an obstacle to drinking wine. Stamps in this alcopassport would have to be extended regularly, like a three-month foreign travel visa. One can be sure that shady dealers will soon be offering a new service: "Alcopassport. Low price. "
Kaliningrad Governor Georgy Boos took a different approach, proposing "a club of politicians, businessmen and artists: authoritative people who are willing to encourage others to lead a healthy way of life by renouncing alcohol."
Mr Boos suggested that Yuri Luzhkov and Rashid Nurgaliyev might be among the club's members. Considering that the Moscow Mayor and the head of the Interior Ministry have enough of trouble running their respective departments, Mr Boos's idea brings back the memories of Ivan Krylov's fable "The Musicians" whose characters have a tin ear for music, but avoid alcohol and behave in an exemplary fashion.
Maxim Sokolov
