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
Russian employment services fail to place the unemployed back in jobs amid current layoffs, as reported at Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov on December 20.
Russians have difficulty in naming the winners and the main events of 2008. As usual, bad news attracts more attention, and Russians are simply stunned by the main bad news, which is the economic crisis.
The presidium of the Presidential Council on Developing Local Self-Government met in Lipetsk yesterday. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin acknowledged in his address that "not all problems had been settled during the transition period, namely - the municipal boundary description and municipal property delineation. These affairs are all too often muddled. As a result, the Government has to postpone the deadline for describing and fixing the boundaries of municipal entities and for settling municipal property disputes until January 1, 2012."
In Ulyanovsk and Tolyatti, mass rallies were held yesterday in support of a government decision to raise duties on foreign cars imported into Russia. They came after earlier protests staged in the Far East and Siberia against these protective measures that threaten to cut jobs there. Government policy has thus led to a large-scale conflict between the interests of different regions in Russia, and the opposition is warning of new social upheavals.
Another scandal is brewing over mortgages, which had been growing for six years. A flourishing business has waned overnight, and the future of mortgage lenders is grim.
Russian companies have estimated that their rescue will cost 3.5 trillion roubles, but the government does not have that much. First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov has summed up the requests of a range of industries after a series of meetings with their officials: companies have asked for a total of 3.5 trillion roubles on top of the existing loan portfolio.
Yesterday Prime Minister Vladimir Putin virtually put an end to a heated debate about the tariffs for Russian Railways next year. He announced that tariffs on railway cargo transportation will be increased by 5% on January 1 and the average yearly growth will be 12.4%. Earlier in the week Russian Railways hoped for an 8% increase. In addition, the state will give the rail monopoly 50 billion roubles and will buy the company's additional stock issue for 41 billion roubles. Experts say the Government has to meet the railway halfway because of a sharp decline in freight traffic. To ease the burden, tariffs will be raised in stages.
On December 18, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin went to the Lipetsk Region where he chaired a meeting of the Presidium of the Presidential Council for the Development of Local Self-Government.
The appearance of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at a Euroleague round 8 basketball game at CSKA sports centre did not bring success to the army team: as the game with Real Madrid was drawing to a close, the team seemed to lose its drive and was defeated by its main rival for first place in the group: 78-82.
On December 19, Vladimir Putin will have another meeting with heads of the Russian auto companies. They will meet at a KamAZ plant to discuss ways of supporting the automotive sector in crisis conditions. It is expected that car manufacturers will ask the Prime Minister to take urgent measures for stimulating demand and providing funds on easy terms. The previous meeting, which was held in May, initiated the decision to raise customs duties on car imports to 35%.
VTsIOM public opinion agency has found that few have taken notice of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's efforts to steady the economy as he toured the country. Fifty-six per cent of those polled know nothing about the Government's anti-crisis measures. And those who are informed do not applaud "Putin's plans": only one in ten (11%) called them adequate.
On December 17, 2008, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with the ministers in charge of national projects at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence. The funds allocated for the priority trend in state policy are not always spent rationally and the projects are far from perfect, the Prime Minister said.
People will pay more for gas and other utility services starting January 1, 2009. Before the crisis, there was a sort of tacit agreement between the Government and energy companies whereby Russians had to pay the minimum and Western clients the maximum for energy. Now it seems that energy companies are determined to make domestic consumers pay more.
Time Magazine has named President-elect Barack Obama the Man of the Year yesterday. The influential American weekly awards this honourable title every December to a person, or group of people, who has exerted the most powerful impact on global events over the outgoing year. Obama left other candidates, such as America's former First Lady Hillary Clinton, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and head of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe, far behind. Last year, Time named then-Russian President Vladimir Putin the Man of the Year.
Rumours were spreading that the filmmakers lacked the money to edit an episode of the popular Russian TV sitcom "My Beautiful Nanny," which has Vladimir Putin's look-alike meeting the main character, Vika Prutkovskaya. Prior to the premiere of the sitcom's new season on channel CTC, the buzz and press reports on the plot had been that Vika, hired as a nanny, would move to a house in the elite Rublyovka neighbourhood of Moscow. Later she would go to a posh French ski resort in Kurshavel and meet Vladimir Putin, who is a known downhill skier. According to reports, a Putin look-alike was hired to film the episode - however, the photographs in the press showed Vika with a man that only vaguely resembled Mr Putin.
On December 19, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will chair a meeting with the CEOs of Russian automotive giants at truck maker KAMAZ in Naberezhnye Chelny in Tatarstan, the Government press service said. During the meeting, Mr Putin will decide on measures to support automakers who want the Government to promptly facilitate demand and to issue easy-term loan guarantees.
Like Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, Russian leaders were cornered as public unrest, stirred by skyrocketing car import duties, swept Vladivostok. Russia experienced something similar in 1993, when Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin capitulated unconditionally. Vladimir Putin, the present Prime Minister, would never do that-concessions are not part of his political philosophy. Besides, the unrest in the Far East is only the tip of an iceberg. Are Russian leaders ready to face mass protest, which is inevitable in the midst of an economic crisis? And why do they provoke public protest even when it can be prevented?
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin spent yesterday sorting out farming problems. He began his working day by visiting the Yershovo dairy farm. Putin admired the calves, inspected the cowsheds and also toured the cow milking house. He was told that all yields were computer-monitored. One cow produces 19 litres of quality milk daily. "Cows must be flocking here," the Prime Minister joked.
The Russian economy shows a downward trend. According to the results of the fourth quarter of this year, the GDP growth rates will drop to 2.6% against 7.3% in the preceding three quarters, the economic development ministry reports. Government experts do not know how long the recession will last. However, a statement made by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at a meeting of the heads of government of the EurAsEC countries on December 12 that the Russian Government would reserve about 9 trillion roubles ($306.23 billion) for support of the banking sector alone gives us grounds to believe that the Government is preparing for a protracted recession.
Disputes on the history of Holodomor, a famine in Ukraine in the early 1930s, and what was behind it reach the highest tension when they come to opinion clashes on Joseph Stalin. Two or more generations of Ukrainians (I mean mainly the Eastern Orthodox population in central and south Ukraine) remember the horrors of Stalinist collectivisation and Holodomor. Many Russian peasants, especially religious ones, also considered Stalin an atrocious killer. Still, they forgave him many sins, especially after the victory in World War Two. As for Professor Anatoly Butenko, war veteran and my teacher and superior at the Economic Research Institute of the World Socialist System, who survived the 1932 famine in a village near Poltava, his views on Stalin were as harsh as the one held by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko now.
