Some think the premises on Old Square are confirmation of the party's new status.
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev
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United Russia Meeting Moves Downtown
The next meeting of the presidium of the general council of the United Russia Party will be held not at party headquarters on Banny Lane in Moscow, but at 6 Old (Stary) Square, in the premises that had served as Dmitry Medvedev's campaign headquarters (as well as the Moscow Region Duma building, until it moved to new facilities on Prospekt Mira, and headquarters of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, until 1991). Council members were warned of the change of locale last week at the first meeting of the council since the party congress. No reason for the change was given.
The building is now vacant. Head of the party executive committee Andrey Vorobyev said that it would be rented periodically by the party for its functions. United Russia presidium members says that the change is purely due to technical considerations – the site is much closer to the Sate Duma, where many members travel from through Moscow's infamously difficult traffic, than party headquarters. They are unwilling to hold presidium meetings in the State Duma building to avoid accusations of abusing their position.
State Duma and United Russia member Sergey Markov agreed with the presidium members, saying “Of course, the party will change after Putin comes on board, ballast will be shed – people looking for personal gain in the party. But I don't see signs of those changes in the move to Old Square.”
Nonetheless, others see greater meaning in the move. “It's close to the Duma and the presidential administration [located on the same square]… If they had tried to occupy the premises before the president took control of the party, they would to fight other lobbyists for the building. But now it was probably easy to reach an agreement on it,” commented Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Panorama information and research center.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 23, 2008
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