Vladimir Putin’s face showed concern that the Christ Has Arisen Indeed. Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov is seen on the left.
Photo: Ilya Pitalev
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The Last Treated Like the First
// Vladimir Putin attends an Easter Service
Russian President Vladimir Putin attended an Easter Service at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow Saturday night. Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov has details.
Georgy Poltavchenko, the president’s envoy to the Central Federal District, turned up to the sole, a part of the church right to the altar, first. Standing on the sole all alone, he obviously basked in this solitude.
Moscow Major and Russian Railways’ head Vladimir Yakunin, who had been to Jerusalem with Culture Minister Alexander Sokolov that day to see the Holy Fire, joined Mr. Poltavchenko a few minutes later. The Order of the Holy Sepulcher with a wide read band was hanging on his neck. The head of Russian Railways received the order from Jerusalem’s church a few years earlier, and now he wears it only on special Orthodox occasions.
Below, there were two groups of guests standing, obviously divided by their importance for the Russian Orthodox Church. The former one was headed by Culture Minister Sokolov, State Duma’s deputy Artur Chilingarov and Regional Development Minister Vladimir Yakovlev. The second group of included the Holy See’s representative in Russia, Archbishop Antonio Mennini, and Russia’s envoy in Chechnya, Sergey Abramov.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the vice-speaker of the State Duma, stood the closest to common believers who came to the cathedral that night.
“I’m going to stand next to the people the whole night through!” Mr. Zhirinovsky said with a challenge. “Do you know who the organizers usually send invitations for the service first? They send them to Zyuganov [head of the Russian Communist Party]. But he is never here.
So, it seems that Vladimir Zhirinovsky is never invited and yet he keeps on going.
Mr. Zhirinovsky told me he was going to hand out 1,200 Easter eggs, 2,000 chocolate bars and 300 jars of condensed milk in Moscow’s Arbat street the following day.
“I wanted to have a table along the whole Arbat to offer a lunch for everyone on the holiday. The lunch would have definitely come down to the Guinness Records Book but it was not allowed.”
“Maybe, that’s the reason why they prohibited the action?” I asked.
“Sure. These are backstreet intrigues.”
At this point, he swiftly took a huge pack of 100-ruble notes out of his pocket.
“D’you have enough money?” he asked.
I barely had time to reply.
“Well, I don’t know how to put it…” an old lady standing behind the barrier, half a meter away from us, responded.
“Here are some… Easter’s money, you know,” Zhirinovsky mumbled and went along the barrier.
The 100-ruble pack got thinner with every minute. A couple of minutes later, each and every camera, once focused on the altar, was on the Liberal Democrats’ leader. He became the news maker of the church for a few moments because the main news makers has not resurrected yet.
Patriarch Alexy II, another news maker, appeared in the church, and the two groups of official guests following him to leave the cathedral and merge in the Easter religious procession outside.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and head of the president’s administration Sergey Sobyanin joined Vladimir Putin who had come to the sole a few minutes earlier.
Mr. Putin and his companions stood silently, holding burning candles. Nothing could give away their emotions in these solemn minutes.
Long-awaited “Christ Has Arisen!” sounded through the cathedral. The country’s leaders still seemed extremely concentrated and even a bit concerned about this news.
Perhaps, the country’s president was picturing how he would read the much-anticipated address to the Federal Assembly, scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.
In the meantime, the patriarch addressed believers saying that Easter is the holiday for both those who observed the Lent and those who did not, for those who came to the service in the morning and those who came late.
“Let those coming at the eleventh hour not dread their delay,” he said. However, it was only the country’s president who turned up to the church half an hour before the climax of the celebrations. “Treat them like the first one!”
In fact, everybody did.
Vladimir Putin said something to the patriarch in reply and went out behind altar doors with him. The patriarch gave the president a red velvet box with an Easter egg there while the president gave the patriarch a blue velvet box with a candlestick inside. Mikhail Fradkov and Sergey Sobyanin went into the altar later to congratulate the patriarch.
The solemn service went on without leaders of the country, so the sole by the altar seemed to be deserted until Artur Chilingarov, the famous polar expeditions fan and Duma’s deputy, took up the place.
Andrey Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 24, 2006
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