Speaking to the State Council on Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin (right) asked Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov (left) to allocate extra funds to promote the Russian language and culture.
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Culture is Not a Project - It Is Our Life
// President Putin gives boost to Russian folk culture
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin took part in a session of the State Council on Tuesday, highlighting the importance of promoting folk culture and patriotism. Later that day, he received a folk dance company in the Kremlin and went to Red Square to go skating with kids. Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov reports from the Kremlin.
Long before the session opened, St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko made a confession that she had always been fascinated by folk culture.
“When I was a small girl, I did a lot of cross-stitch embroidery,” she recollected with some embarrassment.
“I heard that you are also going to make a skating-rink in the center of St. Petersburg, in Palace Square, aren’t you?” I asked her.
“Absolutely!” she responded enthusiastically. “We will definitely have a rink. It’s a shame that we didn’t have enough time to do it this year. But next year it will beat the Moscow one.”
I doubted that it was possible.
“Just imagine the backdrop of St. Petersburg?” she was trying to convince me. “And what’s special do you have down here?”
It seems that Ms. Matvienko does not care much for the St. Basil Cathedral, the Mausoleum, the Kremlin Wall and the GUM.
Krasnodar Territory’s Governor Alexander Tkachev told me that he, too, had been greatly exposed to folk culture. He was singing in a choir when he was a kid and even finished a guitar course.
Mikhail Shvydkoy, head of the Culture and Cinema Agency, seemed to the only one without colorful folk past. Neither was he excited about an idea to go skating.
“I haven’t been doing any sports for the last 60 years,” Mr. Shvydkoy, who still has a long way to be 60, said with defiance.
The culture official probably sounded defiant because he had just learnt that the Russian president was going to go skating that day.
Chukotka Governor Roman Abramovich looked at the journalists with his traditional indulgence. He kindly did not answer their questions. Taking his seat in the Kremlin’s Alexander Hall fifteen meters away from the president, Roman Abramovich started gazing at Vladimir Putin. The governor seemed to be trying to catch his eye. Mr. Putin, however, was absorbed in reading out his report and later – in conversation with two people flanking him – his aide Alexander Abramov and his government’s head Mikhail Fradkov.
Mr. Putin noted that “people are getting increasingly interested traditional culture, joining folk groups and folk culture societies”. Traditionally, the material component leaves much to be desired.
In an imperative voice, the president suggested that Russian governors promote the Russian language in their regions. Personally, I would not have brought myself to say that our language is inexpressive that it needs extra support. Russia’s president, however, perhaps meant the literary Russian language.
“These are not just words!” Mr. Putin said. “I sincerely ask you to give your undivided attention to this matter. The government, in its turn, should allocate the required resources for programs to promote the Russian language.
Vologda Region Governor Vyacheslav Pozgalev heads a task force responsible for the preservation of folk culture. His report did not come down to it, though.
“I would like to quote you, Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin]. As you said in 2004…” the governor was speaking with a radiant smile, feasting his eyes on his president.
Folk culture was last fostered in his vein at sessions of the Soviet Communist Party. All the things that later at the Alexander Hall happened were reminiscent of those meeting.
And yet, Mikhail Shvydkoy made an impassioned speech, without any notes to read from. He believes that it is very good that culture has not become another national project. Mr. Putin, however, lamented it once.
“Culture is not a project. It is life,” Mr. Shvydkoy said. “Culture is more than a project.”
He managed recall only one wonderfully preserved hearth of folk culture. This is a small village of the Old Believers outside Vorkuta. The place was preserved only because there are virtually not ways to get there. Mikhail Shvydkoy recollected that Soviet Secretary General Nikita Khrushchev had been anxious to improve the life in villages.
“He was striving for people in villages to live like people in cities,” Mikhail Shvydkoy explained.
Fortunately, Khrushchev failed.
“But this is not the problem!” Mr. Shvydkoy exclaimed. “You sit in this hall wearing the same suits, the same ties, the same glasses. You will never put on a kosovorotka [a Russian skewed-collared shirt]!..”
“Why not?” a governor reacted resentfully.
“Because you don’t have the culture inside you!” Mr. Shvydkoy explained.
The governors exchanged perplexed glances. This thought must have never occurred to them.
Yakutia’s leader Vyacheslav Shtyrov, member of the task force on the development of Russia’s culture and language, made a short report of the situation in this region and urged two Russian federal TV channels to allocate time for showing culture as such. The special Culture TV channel does not seem enough to him. It does not cover all Russia, so hearths of Culture are chaotic.
Chita Region Governor Ravil Geniatulin suggested granting “an official nation status” to some regions and passing a law to assign this. But inn this case one may have to amend the law on fighting extremism drastically.
Ravil Geniatulin said that culture must be entered on the list of national projects and shared his experience of promoting the projects.
“I have my own way of explaining the concept,” he said. “There is a crisis. It has to be solved. The president gives money for it. We need to manage it because the funds do not come from the budget. The way is found – it is a national project.”
Like Vyacheslav Shtyrov, Sergey Morozov, head of Ulyanovsk Region, suggested amending mass media laws to make the press write articles supporting culture.
A weak smile was playing on Roman Abramovich’s face. Deep in his thoughts, he seemed to be far away from here (we can even guess where he was). He must have thought that he heard all this talk for the last time in his life. Earlier, Roman Abramovich did hear the Russian president’s answer to his resignation as Chukotka governor. Still, he kept on glancing at the president as if expecting some kind of sign.
He hardly noticed the love on the face of Tula Governor Vyacheslav Dudka (almost only Vyacheslav’s spoke at the Alexander Hall that day) as he was talking about the Tula Accordion company which produces the product of the same name which “by far surpasses all foreign analogs in all respects”. I think I do not need to say how warm the eyes of the Tula governor looked as he mentioned Tula samovar’s and Tula pistols.
Repeating with pleasure that “this country is rising” thanks to “the patriotism that unites us”, Mr. Putin closed the session which lost its meaning long before the end.
However, the main thing was still in store for one man in the hall. Going away from the table, Vladimir Putin made a hardly discernable gesture to Roman Abramovich. Abramovich noticed it and hurried to the president. They spoke for a few seconds, or, rather, Vladimir Putin did all the talking. Roman Abramovich was only nodding and musing. As he was leaving the president, his smile of bliss was saying the only thing: “I’m free!” Mr. Abramovich was so high that for a few seconds he was unaware where his legs were taking him. In fact, the legs took him to the corridor to the press, though he could have left the room as other governors, just going straight to the exit. Once Roman Abramovich came around, he whispered something absent-mindedly and finally found the right way-out.
Shortly afterwards, Vladimir Putin was set to demonstrate his true devotion to folk culture. There could not have been anything more traditional than ballerinas from Beryozka, the Russian top folk dance company which used to be the banner for the Soviet Union along with cosmonauts and figure skaters.
“Are you going to provide the ballerinas with apartments?” the president’s chief of staff Vladimir Kozhin asked Mikhail Shvydkoy who had just got here – the first building of the Kremlin.
“It is you who give away apartments,” Mr. Shvydkoy replied kindly.
“But it is you who is responsible for culture,” Kozhin retorted.
Mr. Shvydkoy was about to shake his head in negative, but stopped. All Moscow apartments were cheaper that Kozhin’s compliment.
Ladies from the Beryozka ensemble were sitting at the table. Some of them looked absolutely stunning. I saw at least four absolutely gorgeous ballerinas. There was a young guy among them who looked really queer in their company.
When Vladimir Putin entered the hall, the ladies got up and started applauding him in a professional manner. They did everything professionally, though.
Mr. Putin, in his turn, was very professional to have given the ensemble a new boss – Mr. Kozhin. Beryozka has come under management of the president’s staff – perhaps as the common property of people. They have also received a new separate building for rehearsals that Vladimir Kozhin promised refurbishment.
Mira Koltsova, the dance company’s artistic director and chief choreographer, whole-heartedly thanked the president and assured him that the ladies love him.
“Today is a happy day,” she said. “We are visiting the president! I don’t want to hide that we were worried that after perestroika kids started saying “wow” instead of “khorosho” [“great” in Russian].
All worries seem to be left behind. The perestroika is over. Everything is falling back in place. Mira Koltsova, however, was speaking yesterday as if the perestroika never started.
“During all those years Beryozka has never let down the motherland!” she told the president.
Perhaps, it means that all these ladies are doing the service – particularly during foreign tours.
“Ladies!” Mira Koltsova gave a sudden command. “Get up! One-two-three… A deep bow for the president, please!”
The ladies did everything professional again without knocking down a singly cup from the table with their plaits.
After meeting Beryozka the Russian president had only one thing left to do for that day – go to the skating-rink in Red Square where children from orphanages were waiting for him. And so were figure skaters who had come from their apartments that the president had give them after the last meeting for the things they did to help country rise and boost patriotism higher than in the Soviet wonderland.
Read Kommersant on Thursday and you will learn how the president took the ice and how it all ended.
Andrey Kolesnikov, special correspondent
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 27, 2006
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