"Vedomosti": "A Room as Big as Putin’s"
Dmitry Medvedev is setting up his own regional offices to handle complaints from citizens. The presidential envoys to the regions have been instructed that the offices should be at least as big and well equipped as similar offices maintained by Vladimir Putin.
A source close to the office of one of the president's regional plenipotentiary representatives told Vedomosti that the representatives had been given a month to set up reception offices in all federal districts, while federal inspectors have been tasked with organizing work in the remaining regional centres.
The president issued instructions to set up reception offices back in April after holding meetings with citizens for the first time this year, the president's press secretary Natalya Timakova said. This work is supervised by deputy-chief of the president's executive office, Alexander Beglov. It is routine work, but it has been given a boost now. For example, these reception offices will be equipped with videoconferencing rooms. They will be paid for out of the budgets of the presidential plenipotentiary representatives' offices. No additional funding will be required. Natalya Timakova stressed that these offices should not be compared with Putin's. Putin's offices are more like public organisations, while Medvedev's reception offices will help civil servants deal with citizens' complaints more efficiently.
In Rostov, plans call for opening a presidential reception office in the building of the former Burevestnik cinema located at the Southern Federal University, whose board of trustees is chaired by President Medvedev, a staff member of the presidential envoy to the Southern Federal District says. The offices will be at least as spacious as Putin's reception offices. The regional property ministry, which owns the building, will make 450 square metres available to the office of the plenipotentiary representative, a university staff member said.
In the capital of the Volga District the reception office will be housed at the Nizhniy Novgorod Kremlin, where "technical work is currently under way", according to Sergey Andreinichev, a member of the plenipotentiary representative's staff. A building with a total area "about the same size than that of Putin's [public reception office]" has been found in the centre of Kemerovo. The plan is being cleared with Medvedev's administration and the premises are being inspected and equipped by members of the Federal Guard Service, says the chief federal inspector in the region, Igor Kolesnikov.
Staff members at offices of plenipotentiary representatives say that addressing citizens' complaints will be added to their job description, while no staff increases will be made due to fiscal constraints. Offices in the Southern Federal District will not open before next year, while offices in Siberia could open as early as November. Mr Medvedev may pay visits to some offices and speak with citizens directly, according to a staff member for the plenipotentiary representative to the Southern Federal District.
A staff member for the inspector for the Republic of Altai claims that Medvedev's offices will not duplicate Putin's in terms of function, and that they are "not even thinking about it." Putin's reception offices were established in 2008 and are headed up by prominent United Russia politicians or activists in the region.
The prime minister used them to talk to the people via live video link. President Medvedev has been gradually expanding his audience. First he set up his own blog. He wrote an article entitled "Russia, Onward" and encouraged a public discussion. Now he is creating the infrastructure to carry on just such a discussion, says political analyst Dmitry Badovsky. Badovsky does not rule out the possibility that competition will arise with Vladimir Putin's reception offices.
Mikhail Rudnev, Yelena Mangeleva, Yevgeny Rakul, and Olga Morozova contributed to this article.
Natalya Kostenko
