Izvestia: “How Putin the carpenter earned his first thousand roubles”
Yesterday Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited Sochi's Olympic construction sites, including the Grand Arena in the Imereti Valley, where he was met by members of student construction teams. There, Putin started talking to them and appraised them of a few interesting facts from his biography.
The construction of Olympic facilities in Sochi is in full swing. Developers say that they have long been ahead of schedule. The Soviet practice of involving young people in construction has also been given a new lease on life. Putin met members of these student construction teams at a tea party yesterday.
"They feed us like prize turkeys. Many of us don't eat that much at home," Kirill from Yekaterinburg chattered rapturously.
"You don't do anything at home, but here you work," the prime minister grinned.
"Of course, everything is much tastier when one works."
"Do you work in your specialty? Are you building railways?" Putin asked.
"We are building bridges. Our teacher told us that upon completion, we'll receive second-degree bridge building certifications."
"When I was working on a student team, I received fourth-degree carpentry certification. So you better work to match my rank," Putin joked.
"We may not be able to do it in such a short span of time, but we'll try our best," one young man said with downcast eyes.
The others at the table were drinking tea and eating pastry. Taking note of their robust appetite, the prime minister couldn't resist asking:
"Do you have enough time for rest?"
"We are young," they replied with a chorus of loud laughter. "No matter how much we work, we don't go to bed anyway."
The atmosphere became completely relaxed. "And what team were you in?" asked Ivan from Krasnoyarsk.
"We were working in Komi, repairing buildings and cutting a vista under high transmission lines in the taiga. We worked a lot – about 12 hours per day," Putin willingly recalled.
"The government hugely encouraged construction teams in the Soviet times. Their members did not have to pay taxes. Is it possible to relieve us from taxes, too?" Kirill asked, touching on a sore subject.
"Why not? How much do you get now?"
"About 17,000 roubles. And may I ask you how much you got when you worked on a construction team? That is, of course, if it's no secret."
"Certainly not," Putin laughed. "I was a rank-and-file member in a student team and received about 900 roubles for month and a half."
"And what was the average salary then?"
"About 200 roubles."
Putin's words were met with cheers in the small canteen. Some guys even clapped their hands.
"People didn't know what to do with such money," Ivan hazarded to guess.
"They did," Putin broke into laughter. "We went with friends to the Gagra resort – it's not far from here – and left half of our earnings there. Later on, I spent the rest of the money on a new coat and wore it for 10 years. It turned out to be a good coat."
"Well, you've got much more than the average..."
"I've already said that we worked in hard-to-access regions, in the taiga in Komi. We worked with axes and petrol-powered saws for 12 hours per day. I went out for sports actively and thought that I was the strongest. It appeared I was wrong. The guys who came from the army were tougher."
"Sochi is not Komi," Kirill arrived at the disappointing conclusion.
But Putin explained the Soviet arithmetic:
"I told you we worked 12 hours, and, honestly, sometimes even 15 hours per day, but this doesn't mean that what we did conformed to labour legislation. But we covered a lot of ground and were paid well. Luckily for us, violation of labour legislation was neglected, but I cannot say that I support the idea of earning money at whatever cost."
Over the course of the hour, Putin told the young men about the future of the Olympic facilities after the games and read a brief lecture on the economy, explaining why industrial enterprises had shut down, how young specialists can find jobs and what will determine the size of their scholarships. Finally, the conversation switched to entertainment.
"We are building the Olympic facilities, and we'd like the government to help us see the Olympics when we're finished," Alexander from Veliky Novgorod said.
"We will train volunteers to work at the Olympic Games. This is the first opportunity. Second, we may simply provide tickets for those who took part in the construction of Olympic facilities in Sochi. That's only fair."
"What if we are building them only for the glory of others?" Alexander hinted at the recent failure of the Russian Olympic team in Vancouver.
"And what do you think yourselves?" Putin seized the initiative.
"That we'll tear them to pieces!"
"I'd also like to see that. I hope that our Olympic team won't let us down, but sport is sport."
They then drank tea and were about to leave when Anna asked a last question:
"What did you do in your spare time when you were on a student construction team?"
"We were working like crazy from morning till night," Putin replied.
"What about singing songs by the fire?" It seemed the girl could not accept the total absence of romance from the prime minister's young life.
"Can you imagine how many mosquitoes gather by a fire in Komi?" Putin laughed. "But so I don't disappoint you, I'll tell you that apart from a sauna, which was our best entertainment, we tried to spend our time together, although, to be honest, I didn't take an active part in public life."
"And what about love affairs between members of construction teams?"
"Yes, there were love affairs. I won't lie about that."
Anastasia Savinykh
