VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
Advertising revenues across the various media have dropped by 20-34% and “advertising volume looks set to decline,” the Minister of Telecommunications and Mass Media, Igor Shchegolev said during a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday.
Dmitri, the son of the State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov and the niece of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin , Vera, have launched vigorous political activities in St Petersburg, “the city that has raised two presidents”. They intend to create a youth parliament and government, to head up these organisations and to “act as liaisons between young people and the authorities.” Izvestia has been learning more about out how this initiative arose. Dmitri Gryzlov and Vera Putina have been spending a lot of time together recently thanks to their joint activities. After appearing together on local cable television they dropped by at a café to exchange their impressions. Contacting Vera Putina turned out to be easy: we called Dima Gryzlov and he passed the phone to her.
VSMPO-Avisma has signed a $4 billion contract with the European aircraft builder.
Whatever may happen to the economy the new city of Sochi, Vladimir Putin’s city, will be built on schedule.
Over the past week, Dmitry Medvedev has demonstrated that he is capable of making broad gestures.
Unlike his predecessors who, as soon as they moved into the Kremlin, started to fill it with their own people, Dmitry Medvedev is still a member of the “Putin team”. That is one more argument in favour of the claim that the “Putin era” still lies ahead, thinks Olga Kryshtanovskaya, PhD in Sociology, the head of the RAS Sociology Institute’s sector for the study of the elite.
Twenty years ago Boris Yeltsin, a party functionary who had fallen from grace, made his second bid for power. In 1989 he became People’s Deputy of the USSR, in 1990 the head of Parliament of the RSFSR and in 1991 the President of Russia. It was only later that became “Tsar Boris”…
The members of Boris Yeltsin’s entourage have fared differently after “Grandfather’s” demise: some withdrew into the shadows, some became integrated into the Putin-Medvedev team. “Some are gone and some are far away”.
It will soon be a year since Dmitry Medvedev became President. Those who remember Mikhail Gorbachev’s first year as the Communist Party General Secretary would agree that history repeats itself. Mr Gorbachev looked more liberal than his predecessors. There were hopes for a “thaw”. However, everybody was sure that Gorbachev was beholden to the Kremlin octogenarians. Gorbachev’s first year fell on the first year of plummeting oil prices and he realised that he could not afford a confrontation with the West. Like today, a “reset” of relations with America took place.
Easter service was celebrated at the Christ the Savoir Cathedral on Sunday night.
Boris Gryzlov’s son and Vladimir Putin’s niece will run youth affairs in St Petersburg.
As of March 1 the Tver Carriage Plant (TVZ), which employs a workforce of 10,000, has been shifted to a three-day week, and workers’ wages have been cut making it a problem for them to pay back their credits. On Wednesday the Prime Minister came to the rescue of the workers and the people in the region. “I talked with the head of Sberbank on my way here. He will give instructions to the Tver branch to carry out a total restructuring. He will do it today,” Mr Putin promised.
Russians may soon have a female Prime Minister Putin, though not of the Russian Federation, but of the youth government of St Petersburg. She is not only the Russian Prime Minister’s namesake, but also Vladimir Putin’s niece. MK has contacted Vera Putina, and asked her about the plans of the youth government of St Petersburg, and whether she has ever sought the advice of her famous uncle.
Interview with Rainer Riess, managing director of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Last week Prime Minister Putin delivered his annual report to the Duma and the deputies asked him questions.
Presenting the Government’s report to the State Duma last week Vladimir Putin confirmed the Government’s commitment to the flat income tax rate introduced in Russia in 2001. “On the face of it, of course, this is not very fair,” he admitted, but he chose not to try to convince the deputies that it was fair “on closer inspection.” The Prime Minister rolled out two arguments. First, he noted “when we introduced the flat scale, tax revenue increased by 12 times in eight years.” Second, he mentioned abuses and admitted that “we do not administer this properly: most probably… if we go back to the differentiated rate… no social justice will result”.
The state-controlled Sverbank may acquire a “golden share” in Yandex, the largest search system in the Russian Internet, two sources in the Russian government-controlled banks told Vedomosti.
The Prime Minister, while meeting the employees of a Tver factory, reassured them that the financial crisis would not last as long as the Finance Minister predicts.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited the Tver Railway Carriage Factory yesterday, and gave it financial assistance. In the opinion of Kommersant’s special correspondent ANDREI KOLESNIKOV, the employees of the factory came away from the meeting with the Prime Minister with one pervading feeling: no matter how much the Government gives out during the financial crisis, it must give out still more.
Maurice Druon, author, Resistance fighter, former Culture Minister (1973-1974), one of 40 “perpetual” French academics (1966), and recipient of the Legion of Honour Grand Cross, died in his Paris home on April 14. He would have been 91 in ten days’ time. In Russia, the author of the seven-volume “The Accursed Kings” (1955-1977) was less well known but better loved than in his own country.
