The Prime Minister promised to provide 84-year-old World War II veteran from Azov, Nina Demidenko, with a flat and within 40 minutes officials of the city administration were on the way to her home. Previously the same officials repeatedly turned down the old woman's petitions, but now the governor of Rostov Region took the case under his personal remit.
During Vladimir Putin's phone-in programme Oleg Trusov, a citizen of the Rostov Region, got through to the head of government to tell him that his aunt, a World War II veteran Nina Demidenko, lived in a house that was unsafe to live in. Her stand-alone house had no running water, no central heating and no toilet. A disabled person, she found these conditions unbearable. But because she had not registered for a new flat before March 2005, her chances of getting one are nil. She applied to city bosses three times, but each time she was turned down.
Vladimir Putin's reaction was swift and to the point: all veterans must be provided with housing regardless the time of their registration. The Azov authorities at first did not understand what it was all about and denied that such a veteran even lived in their city. But then they acted with amazing speed. "I visited her yesterday afternoon, Azov's Deputy Mayor for social issues, Vladimir Parfyonov, told MK. "We talked and we talked with her sister who had been acting on her behalf before. We looked at the veteran's living conditions which of course leave something to be desired. We immediately put the heroic woman of Azov on the waiting list. Now it is only a matter of time before she gets a flat of her own."
Nina Demidenko herself could not see Putin's press conference because of her poor eyesight. "I am practically homeless," she told journalists later. "The place has no conveniences, it is cold and the roof is about to collapse. Vladimir Putin is my only hope. If he does not help then nobody can be trusted." Some reports say that Nina Demidenko's blood pressure shot up as a result of all this ballyhoo.
Coming to the home of an ordinary old-age pensioner is something of a feat for bureaucrats. Everybody knows how many doors one has to knock at in order to obtain a heap of papers and certificates to get anything from the state. The chances are Nina Demidenko will get her flat. However, such petitions relayed over the TV demonstrate that the whole vertical power structure is rotten: one has to appeal to the very top in order to solve a trifling problem. How many more destitute veterans will be able to get through to Putin on the phone?
Igor Karamzin
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Vladimir the Magician
Everybody remembers that during last year's phone-in a girl from Buryatia asked Vladimir Putin for "a dress like Cinderella's." As a result the girl got her New Year dress and a ticket to a New Year party at the Kremlin. This year the Prime Minister will fulfill the request from Tanya Kopnitskaya from the Omsk Region.
"Our school has three computers. Could you allocate a little money to us?" this was an SMS message a year nine pupil from the school in the village of Starodubka sent to the Prime Minister.
Putin himself picked that message from amongst hundreds of others. "Tanya, like Old Man Khottabych, I will provide a computer for every pupil in your school. No problem there."
MK has reached the girl by phone. She admitted that she had not counted on her request reaching the addressee.
"I sent the SMS message back on November 30," Tanya recalls. "It never occurred to me to ask something for myself. I was eager to present a gift to my school."
The girl said that her school had 70 pupils and only two computers. There was always a queue to use them.
"I wrote to Vladimir Putin that we had three computers. But that is not quite true. One is broken. The other has no Internet access," Tanya admitted.
On December 3 the girl sat down in front of the television set, but she did not watch the programme to the end.
"I thought he would answer only serious questions and switched to another channel. And then my folks called me and said that Putin had read my message aloud and promised to help," a joyful Tanya said.
Anastasia Gnedinskaya