Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) at a meeting on the family with Russian women, March 7, 2007
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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The President Crosses Women and Soccer Fans
Russian President Vladimir Putin met on March 7 with women who asked him to revive health education and encourage a healthy lifestyle. Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov thinks that is what the president was thinking about when he suggested to the cabinet that Russian soccer fans not be deprived of free game watching.
The women arrived in the Alexandrovsky Hall in the Kremlin a few minutes before the president. They were maintained in pristine condition, inaccessible to journalists, at their own request. They were saving themselves for the president. Present at the roundtable were foster parent Tatyana Sharypova, chairman of the nonprofit organization Many Children – That's Good Tatyana Borovikova, and Irina Polezhaeva, mother of a large family, whose paleness and slight distractedness did little to prove the point.
The president spoke to them about a topic of interest to them all: maternal capital.
“I don't know how you feel,” he began, “how effective it is, but my first impression is that there should be some return on it.”
He was talking about the maternal capital of the country. Then he suggested that the ladies express their own ideas and suggestions.
Public Chamber member Alexandra Ochirova thanked the president for bringing “a strategic beginning into our domestic and foreign policy.”
Lyudmila Kotik, chief doctor at the Tula Regional Children's Hospital, stated that the birthrate would rise and the mortality rate fall, if the level of the public's sanitary culture were raised.
“The All-Russian Council on Health Education was a very good organization in Soviet times,” Kotik stated. She was a rather young woman, who knew about the council from newspapers and its bulletins, since there was no other evidence of its existence. “It is very important to arm the nation once again with the knowledge of a healthy lifestyle!” she continued. “The head of our state has no bad habits.” She looked at the president. He nodded his head a bit. “Participates in summer and winter sports, looks great.” Another little nod of the president's head. That is very important for the coming generation!”
“Where do you work?” the president asked.
After that interchange, she came out with it. “Maybe we could return to the system that existed in the Soviet Union?” she asked.
“It seems to me that we should use the structures that already are working now,” Alla Kuzmina, president of the Family of Russia foundation, put in. Her structure was certainly among the ones she had in mind.
“Well, no,” Kotik answered decisively.
“Man comes into the world not on his own. He comes from the secret of the spirit between a man and a woman,” Kuzmina continued.
“Vladimir Vladimirovich, you example as a family man is very important for Russia!” Kotik told the president. “We cannot move forward without the family! We need an informational project to support the family! There should at least be a television show about it! There was The Zhurbin Family.” She was recalling a multipart Soviet film.”
“First of all, I spoke about that in my address to the federal assembly,” the president began. He went on to tell the story of a village.
In the meantime, the members of the council on the implementation of national projects – leaders of the Duma factions, governors and ministers – were drinking tea in the Georgievsky Hall. LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky stayed close to Health Minister Mikhail Zurabov.
“Should someone be punished for the situation with medicines today?” a journalist asked the minister.
“Punish whom?” Zurabov responded, looking around as if for candidates. “There is no one to punish here. Who should suffer if the funds for that medicine wasn't included in the budget?”
“Some say you should,” someone said.
“If that calms public opinion, I will do that with pleasure,” he said with a nervous smile. “It would take a long time to explain what has to be done. The medicine exists, the problem is purely financial.” Zurabov began to talk about the regions and everyone began to wander away. Even Zhirinovsky.
The president was half an hour late for his meeting with the council. “The concept of demographic policy should be in demand in society,” he told the gentlemen, “understandable to it and rest upon the activeness of the public itself,” that is, apparently, sexual activeness.
First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev read a report that included new data on the birth and mortality rates. “Those are not bad numbers,” Medvedev said. “In January this year, 14.7 percent more children were born than in January 2006… The death rate was 9 percent less than last year's.
After that, the president asked Lyudmila Ochirova, who had accompanied the president from one meeting to the other, to say a few words. She mentioned “propaganda for a healthy lifestyle, forming a structure that existed within the framework of our former country the Soviet Union.”
“Dmitry Anatolyevich,” the president said to Medvedev, “I draw your attention to this to increase the opportunities to receive the Sports Channel.”
This statement was not well understood by his audience.
“I have learned that NTV+ and the Russian Soccer League, with chairman Vitaly Leontyevich Mutko fogged something up again. Taking away the chance for us, for the ordinary fan…” Pause. “To watch soccer matches for free! Now, judging from the agreement, ordinary fans will have to spend money to acquire the equipment and pay a subscription fee to watch it on NTV+. Talk to them about, please,” he told Medvedev.
That was followed by the report of Agriculture Minister Alexey Gordeev. But the big news had just been made.
Andrey Kolesnikov
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 09, 2007
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