Izvestia published a photograph of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin watching a football game at a café in Sochi. The Premier is having a beer but the President only tea. Why? Besides that, what is so special about the café that it attracts such customers? We would like to know more details.
Alexander Prishchepa, Troitsk.
The President could not have a beer because he was at the wheel. He had arrived not in an armoured limousine but at the wheel of an ordinary jeep. In addition, that same day he had chaired a conference on combating alcoholism where such horrifying facts were presented that Governor Georgy Boos immediately promised to stop drinking altogether.
The café the President and the Prime Minister visited was a very ordinary one. As a matter of fact, Medvedev and Putin had decided to take a walk spontaneously during their working meeting when they were discussing the prime minister's trip to Abkhazia. Initially they planned to stop at the trendy club, Platforma, as the journalists were told. But walking along the embankment (photo 1) they dropped by at the nearby Ostrovok (Little Island) café. The President ordered tea and a Cola and the prime minister beer and nuts (photo 2). The prices are very affordable: beer costs between 80 and 200 roubles and shashlyk can be had for a hundred roubles. But Medvedev and Putin did not pay themselves, a member of the protocol staff paid their bill. And anyway, they had no time to pay as the startled customers in the café prevented them from watching the football game or from talking to each other. They asked questions and wanted to be photographed with them.
"What will be the score?" somebody asked. "3-2 at best," Dmitry Medvedev replied promptly. Let us hope that it is at least 3-2. They played well, the first half time, I watched it at home, it was 1-0, everything was fine..."
In exactly three minutes our side scored to make it 3-2 (photo 3). After posing for pictures with the customers the president and the prime minister headed for their cars, to the applause of the other customers. They bid each other a warm goodbye (photo 4), embraced and drove to their respective residencies. By the way, Dmitry Medvedev again sat at the wheel of his jeep, much to the dismay of his security guards (photo 5).
"Drive carefully," a woman shouted into his open window. "I'll try to be careful," the president said and stepped on the gas.