The president spent 15 minutes after the broadcast answering questions by inertia.
Photo: RIA
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The President Keeps the Lines Open
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with his people in a live broadcast yesterday. Afterwards, he met with Kremlin pool journalists and answered their questions as well. After they had run out of questions, the Russian president, already in the hallway, answered one more question. It was what he thought about the article in Kommersant by head of the Federal Narcotics Control Service Viktor Cherkesov about the feud among the special services. Only the person who asked the question heard the answer. That was Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov.
The geographical reach of the broadcast was as wide as usual, from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad. It was already night in Vladivostok and the correspondent announced dramatically that “A large group of people has just arrived from Russky Island.” My heart sank as he added immediately that “The ferry is leaving for the island,” because they would not have a chance to ask any questions.
The point seems to have been to show how dynamic life is in our country, that people have better things to do than ask the president questions and then have problems with their ferry.
Television viewers saw how one woman named Olga Satinko was able to ask her question (and two young people after her even). Garri Kasparov owes her one for it. “There are two Russias. The enlightened one up to the Urals, and Another Russia' with an island syndrome of detachment after the Urals…”
That is to say that, if Russia after the Urals is cut off from Moscow, Vladivostok is cut off from Russia after the Urals, and Russky Island is cut off from Vladivostok, and the last thread that connects them is the ferry that, as was already noted, is about to leave. That is, the live broadcast began in the heat of passions that can only be dreamed of (unless you live on Russky Island).
“You, Vladimir Vladimirovich, are one of the few leaders who visits here regularly. We are interested to know,” Olga Satinko continued with real pain in her voice, “what will happen after you leave the office of president?”
I didn't think that the president of Russia would promise Olga Satinko that the problem of detachment from everything and everyone would be solved before our eyes with a bridge or something. I didn't think that because the Russian president had cut off that escape route (or rather line of attack) two days earlier in Iran, when he said that he only made promises to his mother when he was little.
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The Presidential Broadcast in Numbers
There were a record number of questions received – 2,506,740 – during the presidential live broadcast of October 18, 2007. There were 2,414,867 questions received by telephone and 91,873 (3.7%) by Internet. There were five times more questions than during the first broadcast, in 2001.
The president participated in the broadcast for 3 hours, 5 minutes and 40 seconds, making it the longest of the six broadcasts. The shortest was the broadcast of 2001 (2 hours, 20 minutes) and the length of the broadcast increased annually after it: 2 hours, 37 minutes in 2002; 2 hours, 50 minutes in 2003; 2 hours, 54 minutes in 2005 and 2006.
This year, the president answered 67 questions. In the previous broadcasts, in chronological order, he answered 47, 51, 69, 60 and 55 questions. Yesterday, 32 questions were asked (8 by telephone, 1 by Internet, 14 by SMS and 1 presented by the host). Another 11 questions that came by SMS or on the Internet were chosen by the president himself. He declined to answer four questions, saying that the topic had already been discussed enough.
Television cameras were set up at 12 locations. Last year, there were 11 cameras. As before, one camera was set up abroad. In 2002, servicemen at the 201st Russian military base in Dushanbe asked the president questions. In 2003, they came from the Russian airbase at Kant, Kyrgyzstan. In 2005, residents of Riga were given the chance to ask questions and, in 2006, residents of Sevastopol were. This year, the Kazakh city of Aktau was chosen.
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But the president said that it has been proposed to build not just one bridge, but two. Of course, he didn't promise it. Thus, that couldn't be seen as a campaign promise (much as we would like to).
Alas, the president said nothing about what would happen to her after he leaves office. He seems not to know what will happen to him.
The answers to the first questions showed that, in spite of his physical and psychological preparedness for the live broadcast, Putin didn't have the verve that he has been ful of lately.
But I was mistaken.
Mechanic Alexander Sibert from the Novosibirsk Institute of Nuclear Physics told the president, as he stood next to a GOL-3 installation (that is, an open corrugated trap No. 3 – traps 1 and 2 must have been better hidden) that former U.S. secretary of state Madeline Albright had said that it was unfair that “the colossal natural wealth of Siberia belongs to Russia alone.” (Maybe she meant that it should belong to Another Russia as well.) He asked for the president's commentary.
You don't have to ask him twice for things like that. The president called such ideas “that wander around the heads of certain politicians” “political erotica,” and probably moderated his words out of respect for her age.
That is what is best about unplanned questions. That question looked unplanned and pre-agreed with the president, because, if it weren't, the president wouldn't have called it unexpected. Why should he pretend? Eventually, mechanic Sibert could and probably would want to say whether the question was his or given to him.
The president mainly answered questions that the organizers thought concerned people – about prices and pensions, compensation for kindergarten, payment of the debt to military pensioners for the nonpayment of pensions from January 1995 to February 1998…
There were more unplanned questions in the latter part, I thought, because the journalists and people around them were relaxes after the first hour. One of them, instead of giving the microphone to a farmer from Voronezh, began to search with embarrassing stubbornness among Voronezh farmers for those who raise ostriches, without success.
Another journalist, Sergey Semenov, reached cosmic heights. He and a group of men in military uniform located near Plesetsk said that there had been a launch of a Topol ballistic missile. Putin unexpectedly stated, “I gather that the journalist there cannot expected to know the details… As far as I understand, there was a launch not just of a Topol, but a Topol M, no?”
He made it clear that it was hopeless by definition to expect accuracy from a journalist, and hinted that the concern with being faultlessly accurate was his scared duty and honorable obligation as the president of Russia.
“No,” Col. Polunin, head of the experimental division, said joylessly, “it was a Topol whose service life had been extended.”
“I understand… Okay…” the president said, as the journalist ignorance of details slipped out of the corrugated trap that had snapped down on him.
In this live broadcast, like the others, there were many questions were fed to the president. He was supposed to say yet again that he would not be on the job after May 2008. More than half the population of Russia, according to reliable surveys (that don't have to be relied upon), can't even imagine such a turn of events.
It is interesting that, the more often he talks about it, the less the public believes it. The people are seriously concerned that they will be orphaned without Putin. And he tales sadistic pleasure in saying “I'm leaving you.”
It said it gain yesterday.
“There will be someone else in the Kremlin after the presidential election.”
There were questions that Putin answered in a single sentence.
“I see a line of text running by,” the president said, peering at a screen. “Where is that from?”
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Quantitative Analysis of the Live Broadcast
Vladimir Putin uttered 992 sentences, with 14,433 words and 82,564 letters in his 3 hours, 5 minutes and 42 seconds speaking with the people. (In 2006, there were 903 sentences with 13,683 words and 78,250 letters). If the president had not been interrupted by the hosts and public and only gave answer for the entire length of the broadcast, he would have spoken at a rate of 78 words per minute. (In 2005 and 2006, he spoke somewhat faster – 79 words per minute.)
Social policy was again the most popular topic. There were 21 questions about it this year, and 19 last year. There were eight questions each about the economy, foreign policy and domestic policy. (Last year, the first two topics were touched on nine times and the last 11 times.) The most frequently mentioned countries were Iraq and Ukraine (8 times) and Iran (6 times, once as “Persia”). Last year, Georgia was most mentioned (18 times). The president answered four personal questions (the same as last year), three about the Olympics (a new topic), three about the army and two about soccer (last year, there were two questions about each of them).
During the live broadcast, Putin greeted members of the public 14 times, and members of the public greeted him 33 times (last year, 4 and 41 times, respectively). Compared to last year, the president thanked people more often and they thanked him less. The president said “thank you” 9 times, and the public thanked him 32 times (8 and 43 times, respectively, last year).
The word “Russia” and words derived from it were the most frequently used words in Putin's speech, mentioned 107 times (86 times in 2006). The pronouns “we,” “I” and “everyone” were used 183, 118 and 67 times, respectively (138, 82 and 78, respectively, a year ago). The president again spoke more about the future than the past: he used the word “will” 135 times, and “was” 76 times (in 2006, 126 and 62 times, respectively).
The topic of ecology was raised by the head of state this year. He used words with the prefix bio- (bioethanol and biofuel). Also, he used a phrase that was new to him, “political erotica.”
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“That's an SMS, Vladimir Vladimirovich,” the host said cautiously.
Since the SMS questions were stated in single sentences, out of economy of effort and money, the answers were as well, of out economy of something as well, probably.
“Will there be a banking crisis in Russia?”
“No, there won't.”
“Is monetary reform being planned?”
“No, it's not.”
I thought that, if all the questions on the program came by SMS, it would be the most informative of his live broadcasts.
Another question by SMS was “How many hours do you sleep?”
It was a simple question at first glance. But Putin was appearing not only as president, but as the first person on the United Russia federal party list, and that means that he could at any moment violate the law “On Elections,” which prohibits distributing information to the media during the campaign that is unconnected with professional activities or information about “any party along with positive or negative commentary.”
Thus, the innocent question could, at least theoretically, backfire for the president.
“Enough to be able to answers your questions,” the president answered.
The president's sleep (necessary exclusively for his work) will not likely be disturbed by campaigning with an answer like that.
The surprises continued, climaxing with a woman who came on the air, obviously after long haggling with the operators, saying “I won't talk to you, I'll only talk to the president!”
“I'm listening,” the president said.
“Is that you?” she asked.
“Me.”
“Is it really you?”
“Really.”
“Was it you before, too?” She sounded highly suspicious at this point.
“It was me before, too.” The president took responsibility for the woman's conversations with the operators as well, in the heat of the moment.
“Oh, Lord! Thank you very much for everything! Thank you very much!”
There was the impression that the woman was really talking to the Lord (and not only her lord).
At the end of the broadcast, the president began to answer questions of his own choosing. I thought that he would ask himself the questions about foreign and domestic policy that no one else asked him. But the president seems to have decided really not to dispute or even flaunt the law “On Elections.” He spoke again about social benefits, the economy, police corruption…
The hosts, Sergey Brilev and Ekaterina Andreeva, were customary to the presidential live broadcasts, as was the studio itself. They told the president that this was the sixth broadcast and there is probably other “project of such scale and duration in any other country…”
There probably really is no other project of that scale, but Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's weekly (not annual) show leaves that one far behind.
Several minutes after the end of the press conference, the president came into Room 240 of the Kremlin's Building 1 to answer even more questions for the members of the “Kremlin pool.” The questions were more political than the answers to them. The president said that it would be a mistake to redistribute power in the executive branch in the near historical perspective and there was no need to reduce presidential powers in favor of the prime minister. That is, he made it clear that he is not interested in the post of prime minister, which young and old began to connect with him after he appointed Viktor Zubkov to the office.
He said that he doesn't think it necessary to reform the Security Council either.
I asked whether being registered as number one on the United Russia party list influenced and the need to observe the law influenced his answers on the air.
“Yes,” he answered. “Everyone in the country, and your devoted servant, should follow current legislation and I did not allow myself to challenge it openly. That is the observation of the law.”
But his answer to the previous question, what his family gave him on his birthday (the answer was the suit he was wearing right then), could hardly be considered relative to his professional activities, aside from wearing it to work.
When asked if he was sorry that this was his last live broadcast, the president answered that “It is better not to be sorry about anything.” That was exactly what he said eight years ago, when he spoke about his life with the authors of the book In the First Person: Conversations with Vladimir Putin.
All that time, I was thinking about how there was nothing sensational in the broadcast. That was its principle. No one wanted to risk it. No one needs a sensation now, in this practically unbroken period of stability before the parliamentary elections.
“Practically.” But there was one thing. An article by head of the Federal Narcotics Control Service Viktor Cherkesov was published in Kommersant last week that could shake up that stability and become a real sensation. Cherkesov wrote that a “war between groups” and “feud” among special services had begun.
I asked the president to comment on that article as he was leaving Room 240.
“Let's go,” he said, gesturing into the corridor.
As we walked down the hallway, he answered my question in detail.
First, the president said that he had not read the article. I quickly recapped it for him.
“The problem being talked about concern the performance of the law enforcement organs,” he said after listening to me. “And their members should understand that they have to act under supervision. We have no one who is beyond the confines of the law. With that in mind, the situation will be correct.”
The president did not speak quickly. He was either giving me the chance to record his words accurately, or he was choosing his words carefully.
“It would be much worse, if we created the illusion for the member of law enforcement that no one supervised their work. All the same, I understand that they don't like it when their activities to enforce order involve the supervisory agencies.”
He was undoubtedly referring to the agency of the author of the article in Kommersant.
“The only evaluator in this situation is the court,” he added, standing in front of the open doors of the elevator. “Until the court has ruled, those people are innocent.”
I asked if there was a war among the special services or not.
“If I were in the place of the people defending the honor of the uniform, I would not accuse everybody around me, especially in the media,” he said.
Then he decided to reinforce those words. “We have a place to defend your rights and interests in.”
I wanted to ask if the author of the article had asked to see the president, but Putin, perhaps anticipating the question, added, “I mean in court.”
He paused before continuing. “When it was a matter of irregularities in customs,' he said, “when suspicion had been aroused that part of the law enforcement system was protecting the activities of the supervisors, I called in people unconnected with the Moscow elite. And, as a whole, their work was effective. I hope that work ends in court.”
He still hadn't gone into the elevator. He wanted to add something else. “I consider taking that kind of problem to the press incorrect,” he said. “And if anyone acts in that manner and makes claims about a war of special services, he should be blameless himself.”
The president got into the elevator.
Only then could his live broadcast be considered over.
Andrey Kolesnikov.
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 19, 2007
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