Wimm-Bill-Dann (WBD) BOD Chairman David Yakobashvili, left, and famous hockey player Pavel Bure looked rather independent at the party in the U.S. embassy.
Photo: Valery Levitin
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Spaso House Celebrates Independence Day
On the Independence Day, the Moscow residence of U.S. Ambassador, Spaso House, traditionally welcomed the crème-de-crème of Russia and foreign diplomats accredited here. Celebration of the 230th anniversary will be remembered for a few ceremonial novelties.
It was the first Moscow celebration of the Fourth of July, where U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Joseph Burns and his wife, Lisa Carty, were playing hosts. By long-established tradition, Mr Burns and Mrs Carty personally welcomed the guests with the obvious focus on VIPs, sailing into Spaso House by passing the queue.
Contrary to the office days of Alexander Vershbow, the walls of Spaso House were decorated by masterpieces of Tretyakov Gallery instead of design oeuvres of Mrs Vershbow. Another novelty was holding the party exactly on July 4, not a day before it, as it was practiced in time of the former ambassador.
The official part of the event commenced at 7:15 p.m. Dressed in parade uniforms, marines carried American flag to the Spaso House lawn. Then the U.S. Air Force quintet, Headwings, played anthems of Russia and the United States in a very peculiar arrangement, the guests noted.
Another point to remember that day was the speech of Mr Burns. The ambassador addressed his guests in Russian, specifying, among other things, that the U.S.-Russia’s relations may reach higher level thanks to the country’s elite invited to Spaso House.
The ones in Spaso House expected to boost the relations to top ceiling were Russia’s Communist Leader Gennady Zyuganov, Echo of Moscow Editor-in-Chief Alexey Venediktov, former president of the former USSR Mikhail Gorbachev, journalist Yevgeny Kiselev, hockey player Pavel Bure, Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar.
Spokesmen of various confessions in Russia are generally not few in number at celebrations in the U.S. embassy. The same cannot be said about the political celebrities, where the most top-ranked official was Education Minister Andrey Fursenko.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of July 10, 2006
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