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Vladimir Putin Became One of Them at the Soldiers of Freedom Ceremonies
// Visits
Yesterday morning Russian President Vladmir Putin flew to France to take part in the ceremonies honoring the 60th anniversary of D-Day. Special Kommersant correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov reports from the city of Caen that no one and nothing were forgotten, including the invisible (to the rest of the world) role of the Red Army in liberating France from the German Fascist invaders.
The main ceremonies took place in Caen and the small town of Arromanche. Several blocks in the center of Caen where the leaders gathered to be photographed and to dine were cordoned off. No one but heads of state could eat in the center on that day. The press center was located next to the abbey where tables were laid for the leaders. But there seemed to be little chance of gaining access to the abbey. Neither people nor cars were allowed in. In search of life in Caen, instead of going right towards the abbey I went left on the advice of local journalists in order to enter the city center from the rear. I assumed this was how the soldiers of freedom must have acted as they landed in this place 60 years ago.
Everything was confirmed: you can take any fortress you want from the rear. There was no resistance: the streets of Caen were empty. They had been cleared long before my arrival. For a long time I encountered not a single civilian, just policemen.
The American president's motorcade suddenly passed by. This is usually an event in the life of any city. But Caen didn't notice; there was no one there. The motorcades of the Queen of England and Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski followed after George Bush. At that time they were receiving the President of Russia at the prefecture of Caen.
Meanwhile it was learned that all the other motorcades were very late. Due to morning fog, the special planes landed not at Caen as expected by protocol, but in neighboring Deauville. This could have turned into a real disaster: it jeopardized the group photography ceremony, one of the central events of any celebration of this sort. A faint panic set in at the press center, and as a result someone's camera lens got broken. The cancellation of the photo session received official confirmation. The official reason was a catastrophic lack of time. But it seemed to me there was something else (security problems, perhaps). Anyway, the leaders were already gathered at the abbey for dinner. What would it have cost them to stand in front of the cameras for a couple of minutes? It wouldn't have cost them anything.
After wandering around the town I returned to the press center, where they were showing a military sports festival in Arromanche on TV. As I was leaving the press center an hour and a half before, I caught a glimpse on TV of Vladimir Putting arriving at the entrance to the abbey. He met Jacque Chirac, and they embraced with obvious warmth. George Bush appeared right behind Mr. Putin. The meeting of the French and American presidents was extremely reserved. It seemed to me that George Bush was even in an aggressive mood: he clapped M. Chirac's wife Bernadette on the shoulder such that she kept her balance only by a miracle.
Jacque Chirac didn't say a word to George Bush, but instead paid deliberate attention to Bush's wife Laura. He made a show of kissing Mrs. Bush's hand and held her in his for a few seconds longer than the rules of decorum allowed. I expect this was revenge.
However, Jacques Chirac and George Bush had met in Paris met the day before, so it was not worth jumping to conclusions about the incident at the abbey entrance. Or maybe it was worth it: it's not inconceivable that the tone of their discussion was the cause of this dramatic ending.
I saw all this before I decided to go out into the city. As I was returning, I got a bit lost and suddenly ended up right beside the abbey. Unlike the rest of the city, there were few policemen and several dozen curious French citizens with small flags. Three policemen were carefully forming a support group out of them. That is, they were specially instructed citizens. I felt bitterly disappointed. They were free people too! And they were living in a free country!
I saw about 20 people (including Mr. Putin) leaving the abbey and heading for a bus rather than their cars. George Bush and an elderly woman in a blue outfit and blue hat were saying a warm farewell to them. Only someone who had never had anything to do with her (like me, for example) would have failed to recognize the Queen of England.
The bus with the leaders went its way, and the cars with the American president and the Queen of England went theirs.
I later learned that Jacques Chirac had proposed that they all go to the ceremony in Arromanche in one bus, apparently to avoid diverting the attention of international terrorists. They could have gathered in one place with ease. But George Bush refused to go with the rest, removing the danger from everyone else, so to speak. He traveled to Arromanche by helicopter. As a result, his journey was a lot longer than that of the passengers in the bus. They arrived at the Champs de Mars and took their places. Vladimir Putin was seated in the first row. The Queen of England's husband sat on his left. The two seats on the right were vacant. Jacques Chirac and his wife were also sitting in the first row. The French president first turned to his colleagues in the second row and made polite conversation with them and then took another seat near Vladimir Putin. M. Chirac rose at the very moment the Queen arrived. Everyone stood. She sat.
They waited a lot longer for the American president. Twenty minutes passed and he still hadn't arrived. When he finally appeared, everyone stood again (including Mr. Putin after a moment's hesitation). George and Laura Bush took the two vacant seats next to Vladimir Putin. I watched him with interest. In such a situation you can gauge the actual state of relations between our two countries in a couple of seconds.
After noticing Vladimir Putin, George Bush bent over his wife's knees and shook Mr. Putin's hand, not releasing it for a long time. He seemed to be grateful for something.
The ceremony that took place in front of the leaders consisted of a parade of French veterans, decoration of the very best, and most importantly, a speech by the French president. Everyone listened with obvious attention. The fact is that many Russians, both journalists and members of the delegation, had been grumbling patriotically about the French. They hadn't put up a single Russian flag in Caen or Arromanche, although there were any number of New Zealand flags. Only one local paper printed Vladimir Putin's welcome to participants in the ceremony. No one said a word about the role of the Soviet Union. They put up the Russian journalists in a hotel with rooms without locks… There was only one objection to this: Soviet forces did not liberate France.
In his speech, M. Chirac called his country's liberators “soldiers of freedom”. In his words, they had come from the United States and fought for their most important ideals here.
– The soldiers of freedom also came from Great Britain – the French president continued – from Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Luxembourg, and Greece. They were young and daring, possessed with a belief in the justice of their struggle and ready to sacrifice their lives in the name of love for freedom.
Jacques Chirac spoke so beautifully that I wanted to learn French, although this desire virtually disappeared after I heard about how many Frenchmen were also soldiers of freedom and how General de Gaulle had proclaimed the great battle. This battle had already come to an end, and there had not been a word about soldiers of freedom from the USSR. But then after listing the seas of the world on which the fascists had been defeated, M. Chirac recalled that, “there was also a bitter victory on the Eastern Front, where there were many Red Army soldiers who were unstoppable.”
Well, that's something at least.
Andrei Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of June 07, 2004
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