RBK daily: “The President takes the oars and the Prime Minister travels to the bottom of Baikal”
What will Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin be remembered for in 2009?
Dmitry Medvedev
The Age of Modernity
In 2009, President Medvedev set out a new national idea in his programmatic article “Forward, Russia!” and his Address to the Federal Assembly: modernizing the economy, overcoming a “humiliating dependence on raw materials,” achieving breakthrough innovations in new technologies, accomplishing energy efficiency, and arriving at a “knowledge-based economy.” In a very short space of time, all of these phrases have taken over the official government discourse.
A star is born
Beginning February, the President has been giving regular interviews to weekly round-up programmes on major federal TV channels (Vesti Nedeli, Voskresnoye Vremya). And in late December, he gave an extensive year-end interview live to three major national TV channels. Overall, the President spent 2016 minutes on the air.
Blog-shot
Dmitry Medvedev launched his blog on the government’s kremlin.ru site late last year, but it wasn’t until 2009 that it became a powerful channel of communication with the public. First of all, the blog allows the President to explain his position on various issues, whether they concern Stalin’s repressions or the climate change problem. Secondly, it has been very useful as a feedback tool: many comments left on the President’s site have been addressed in his Address to the Federal Assembly. Furthermore, following some comments, the President has instructed to follow up on the issues they raise. In October, Mr Medvedev hinted to regional authorities that a blog was a very useful and necessary tool.
At the oars
We have already gotten accustomed to our leaders congratulating Russian athletes on their victories and, in some cases, even honouring them at the Kremlin. That was the case with the national football and hockey teams, as well as with the Zenit St Petersburg football club. This year, however, President Medvedev sent a congratulatory message to Russian rowers, who won the World Championship in the canoe single’s relay race. Moreover, he personally attended the regatta in Moscow. Rowing is not the most popular sport to score political points on. It is just that when he was a youth, Dmitry Medvedev was a rower himself and even held a rank. So, if we are going to have a “presidential sport” under Medvedev’s presidency, it will be rowing.
Cast in marble
The longer Dmitry Medvedev stays in power, the more “medvedevisms” appear in the political lexicon. The President is feeling more and more comfortable and confident in his public pronouncements and getting increasingly “tougher” on the officials during various government meetings.
The latest exchange between the President and the head of Russian Technologies, Sergei Chemezov, is destined to become a classic example. When Mr Chemezov attempted to respond to the President’s “remark,” Mr Medvedev’s reaction was stern. “Please spare your comments. Mine was not a remark, but a verdict. Making remarks is your prerogative. Everything that I say is cast in marble.”
* * *
Vladimir Putin
The pen of power
In summer, the Prime Minister visited the struggling town of Pikalyovo in the Leningrad region, where all three local industry enterprises had stopped production. During a meeting at the aluminum plant, Mr Putin asked businessman Oleg Deripaska to sign the agreement on the resumption of raw materials supply to the company Bazeltsement-Pikalyovo, allowing the resumption of the production cycle. Then he uttered the words, which have since become a catchphrase, “Give me my pen back!” (Mr Deripaska had kept the pen after signing the agreement). Soon after the incident, a song with the words “Putin, Putin is coming to Pikalyovo; Putin, Putin will take care of us!” became an internet hit in Russia.
Respect
In November, Mr Putin surprised everyone by taking part in the youth program “The Struggle for Respect” on Muz-TV. The program is designed as a contest for rappers and hip-hop artists. After chatting with characters like Maks-13, Dronya and Olesya, and Roma Zhigan, the Prime Minister called on the youth to live healthy lifestyles and said that “break dance, hip-hop, and graffiti are even a better combination than vodka, caviar, and matryoshka.”
The call of the wild
Mr Putin once again chose the Republic of Tuva as his summer vacation destination. Soon photos with his naked torso appeared in the media again. They showed that at the age of 57, the Prime Minister was still in great shape.
King of the animals
Toward the end of the year, alarming news began to circulate in the media: the tiger that Vladimir Putin had placed a GPS collar on last year has disappeared, and its GPS device has stopped transmitting signals. However, the Prime Minister’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quick to reassure the public: the beast was fine and the problem was due to a discharged battery. Mr Peskov assured everyone that the tiger was healthy and doing well and had even delivered a cub.
This year, Vladimir Putin placed a collar on yet another animal – a white dolphin named Dasha. It happened during the Prime Minister’s trip to the island of Chkalov in the sea of Okhotsk, where scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences studied the migration habits of white dolphins.
Poetry
In late November, Vladimir Putin arrived in Yalta for another round of gas negotiations with Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. At the same time, the President of Ukraine, Yushchenko, was meeting with his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili in Kiev (Mr Yushchenko is the godfather of Mr Saakashvili’s younger son). During the press conference after the talks, Mr Putin was asked to comment on the meeting of Russia’s “best friends” in Kiev. At first, the Prime Minister refrained from commenting, but then could not resist joking. “Fighters recalled the days of past glory and battles they jointly lost,” recited Mr Putin, modifying Alexander Pushkin’s poem about another ruler of Kiev – Prince Oleg.
Descent to the bottom of Baikal
Vladimir Putin descended to the bottom of lake Baikal onboard the deepwater submersible Mir. The only remaining venture that Mr Putin has yet to undertake is space flight. All other forms of scientific and research activity have already been mastered by the Prime Minister.
Vyacheslav Leonov
