Today, Yekaterinburg hosts the opening of a plenary session of the 7th interregional United Russia conference. Chaired by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the session will discuss the development of the Urals Federal District.
"In Putin's speech, we have always heard new, breakthrough initiatives that we have been implementing jointly with the regions. In my view, tomorrow's session will also bring forth positive ideas," United Russia General Council Presidium Secretary Sergei Neverov said while closing the first day of the session.
Deputy Speaker Svetlana Orlova added that the health of citizens would be a central issue in the discussions.
United Russia members, participating in the sessions of five workshops, argued all day long how to provide healthcare, how to build houses, how to spiritually enrich the population and how to make innovative breakthroughs.
Traditionally, the participants discuss development projects throughout the regions composing the Urals Federal District during the first day of the conference.
A total of 46 projects were chosen for the conference. Fifteen were considered adequate to be presented to the party chairman, and they will be presented today at a special exhibition before the start of the plenary session.
"Everything that we are discussing is part of real programmes and everything is being implemented. This is not fantasy. These things are real projects," Andrei Vorobyov, the head of the United Russia Central Executive Committee, said, doing his best to persuade participants that they were not wasting their time.
Curious details surfaced at the last session. It became clear that a considerable number of the party members were unaware of the measures that the authorities had been taking.
Orlova read out a message written to the presidium with a request to adopt a law on youth.
"All federal programmes include paragraphs about young people," she said. "All of today's governmental liabilities have financial backing, and people are often not informed." She was obviously reproaching the local party activists.
Orlova added bitterly that "many people do not know what the Popular Front is." However, it will be difficult not to be informed about the Popular Front after this conference in the Urals.
Yesterday, Sergey Neverov and United Russia Central Executive Committee head Andrei Vorobyov visited factories in Verkhnyaya Pyshma and Pervouralsk to tell workers about the front. Both said that they were not campaigning, as the election campaign had not yet begun.
They asked the workers what they wanted to include in the Popular Front's draft budget (Popular Budget) and the programme (Popular Programme)
"The Popular Front is voluntary," Orlova said. "There's no harm in the fact that we went there and discussed the results of our work."
Meanwhile, the campaigning rhythm was explicit during the session. Usually, workshop moderators would buoyantly read out the winning project list. But now, following a report about each workshop session, they were inclined to say what else the voters wanted from them.
Alexander Iltyashev, who reported on the results of the discussion on agricultural sector development, said with ardour: "We, agrarians, badly need a law on food security. This law would specify the quantity of meat that we need to produce, so agricultural workers can have a real goal, and many people in the Urals have been thinking and working on this law just to back the domestic producer."
The "Culture, Sports and Tourism" workshop that listed among its projects gym construction and church reconstruction called for creating an expert panel to oversee TV programmes that "everybody watches."
However, Neverov was bright and optimistic. He noted that "the experience of party initiatives gave rise to the Strategic Initiatives Agency," and following the conferences, Putin used to give instructions to ministries and departments. This is the first conference that has officially included Popular Front participants, he stressed.
Anna Zakatnova