#6
BBC Monitoring
Russia's first lady sees it as her mission to raise her
country's status abroad
Source: Komsomolskaya Pravda, Moscow, in Russian 28 Dec 01
Lyudmila Putina, Vladimir Putin's wife, has said it was her dream to raise the status of the Russian language abroad. She said that, accompanying her husband on his foreign trips, she "tells people more about our country, about how it lives and what it is striving for", thus making more friends for Russia. She believes every Russian should work towards "restoring the former respect for Russia and its people and culture". In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent Aleksandr Gamov, Russia's first lady spoke, among other things, about her family, her work with underage criminals and Putin as her husband. The following is the excerpt from report by Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda on 28 December, the subheadings are the newspaper's own:
On the eve of the New Year your Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent visited the Putins' home and interviewed the country's First Lady...
Why does Vladimir Vladimirovich not sing?
[Gamov] It has been reported in the newspapers that you have changed your image-maker.
[Putina] What do you mean? I have never had an image-maker.
[Gamov] So who works on your image?
[Putina] I rely on my own intuition.
[Gamov] Well, do you have stylists and dress designers?
[Putina] I try to follow my own understanding of beauty, fashion and style.
[Gamov] Where do you get your clothes made or where do you buy them? How do you follow fashion?
[Putina] I get things made for me in Russia but I do buy ready-made clothes as well.
I scarcely follow fashion. I see how the people around me are dressed, including my friends, and I choose something for myself like that.
[Gamov] What exactly?
[Putina] I like bright, stylish, original clothes. You look at a fabric and you think: What can I make from it? And you hold it up against yourself and it falls of its own accord and suddenly you can see a particular line or style of collar. That is, it is all done by sense of touch. But as for following fashion, no.
[Gamov] Do you go to the theatre and exhibitions "unofficially?" Do you have time to watch television?
[Putina] My main sources of information nowadays are the Internet and television. I love the theatre but I virtually never go, there is too much excitement in daily life anyhow. There is simply no time for "unofficial" visits to exhibitions.
[Gamov] And what are your musical preferences?
[Putina] I like our popular singers and popular music. There is no particular principle to it: I hear a tune and like it and enjoy listening to it. I am very fond of ballads.
[Gamov] Do you sing yourself?
[Putina] I hum along among friends.
[Gamov] And Vladimir Vladimirovich?
[Putina] As a rule not. And I have not seen him often among friends recently, he has no time at all. It is mainly business meetings and business.
What is an atmosphere of love?
[Gamov] You and Vladimir Vladimirovich have been married and parents for a long time. You probably have your own secrets for bringing up children.
[Putina] There are no secrets. The atmosphere in which he lives and is raised is important to every child. Vladimir Vladimirovich had that in mind when he said in his book that he grew up in an atmosphere of love. I would add to that the habit of regular work which we try to instil in our daughters.
[Gamov] What habit is that?
[Putina] Children should be fully occupied in their free time. Our daughters have played the violin all their lives, for instance. Of course children want to wander about and play with their dolls and more often simply do nothing. But that should not go on all the time.
[Gamov] And they should not run wild?
[Putina] Intuition will tell you how to act in a particular situation. And it is fairness that should probably be the criterion. With a child you should not follow the principle: I shall do what I want with you! You must realize that he is a person who has the right to choose, the right to some feelings of his own. And you should let him slob around some of the time. But it should not become a habit.
And then there is taking care of their health so that all this regular work does not take its toll. I have never demanded high marks from my children. I believe the main thing is knowledge. And if your teacher has given you a three or a two, then there are plenty of reasons why that has happened. A child cannot be alert all the time: he may have let go or been chatting to someone, and that is why he got a low mark.
Children should not be afraid of their parents, they should respect them. The lack of fear in a child, concern for his health, love - it is probably all that combined which helps us bring someone up. Isn't that so?
Why she tours prisons
[Gamov] A not entirely festive question. I remember you spent a whole day at the colony for underage criminal girls near Ryazan. Before that you visited the Mozhaysk women's penal colony. And then the Duma announced an amnesty for prisoners who had not committed grave crimes, primarily women and children. They say it was not without your involvement.
[Putina] Yes, at the Mozhaysk colony, they amnestied 10 people at once. But it is the legislative and law-enforcement bodies that are involved in that. My main task is to draw society's attention to the problems of child crime.
After all, often children break the law under pressure of external circumstances without even thinking about the consequences of their actions. Only later, at the penal colony, having grown up in terms of both years and world outlook, and I have seen this for myself, do many (if not all) want to return to normal life and forget the nightmare which they encountered in their "former" life...
[Gamov] Lyudmila Aleksandrovna, do you get a lot of letters?
[Putina] Yes, a great many. And some of them are painful to read. You want to help, to make an effort, to take a part in the fate of destitute people.
[Gamov] Do you manage it?
[Putina] Not always. I simply do not have enough time or strength. But now, as the president's wife, I have several assistants. Which, incidentally, has never happened before. And I hope this will enable me to work more effectively.
What will "women's programme" give Russia?
[Gamov] This year is emerging as a very busy one for the Russian president. He has a lot of trips, particularly foreign ones. During state visits you often work on a separate so-called "women's programme". What does that give you personally? And, of course, the state?
[Putina] If we are speaking of personal communications with heads of state that enables us to get to know each other better from the purely human viewpoint. That gives rise to mutual trust. And since politics are made by people, it is clear that this to some degree affects the decisions which are made. Hardly to a radical extent, but in part.
And then you know that after trips abroad you take a somewhat different view of our own problems.
During the visit to Austria in February this year, I visited St Anna children's hospital in Vienna with the chancellor's wife [as published], Mrs Klestil-Leffler. While we were there what pleasantly surprised and delighted me was how lonely and elderly people voluntarily come to the hospital to help the children and medical personnel. They care for the children as best they can, play with them, read books to them and try to make things as easy as possible for them.
It seems to me that several problems are resolved at the same time in this way: The children feel they are being cared for by the adults and lonely people are not so lonely. I though: That is how things should be in our country!
Of course, when I go abroad I try to tell people more about our country, about how it lives and what it is striving for. I believe that we must all restore the former respect for Russia and its people and culture. The broader the range of those who get to know our country better, the more friends we will have.
And I have another dream - restoring the Russian language as a means of international communication at the international level. I have already seen how Russian language centres in the countries of the far abroad are little bridges which also link our countries and help draw attention to our multiethnic culture.
There are arguments even in the president's family
[Gamov] Do you discuss everything with the Russian president? How does he react?
[Putina] The Russian president is for me first of all my husband. Yes, there are many problems which perturb me and as a wife, as a woman, I do of course discuss them with Vladimir Vladimirovich when he has a few minutes to spare.
Although that can be difficult: The president gives virtually all his time to work. But when we touch on some problem I say what I think about it and sometimes even argue.
But I greatly value my husband's opinion and our views most often coincide.
About Tosya, Romeo, Rodeo and Koni
[Gamov] You have three dogs at home?
[Putina] Yes. There is mommy Tosya, a two-and-a-half-year-old toy poodle, and her son Rodeo, who is just over a year old. Tosya had two sons: Romeo and Rodeo. We gave away Romeo when he was six weeks old. We intended to give Rodeo away as well but he has stayed home, it was his decision, nothing would persuade him to go anywhere else.
And we have a female Labrador, Koni - she is supposed to be Vladimir Vladimirovich's dog. She is just over a year old. All our dogs are very good-natured and affectionate and are intelligent and brave of course, and we love them and they love us.
Astrologers asked not to get upset
[Gamov] Do you believe in horoscopes and the New Year advice of Oriental sages?
[Putina] No, I'm not interested. Although when they say that you should wear white to see in this New Year and red to see in that New Year, I try to follow that advice more or less.
[Gamov] How do you spend holidays, for instance the New Year holiday? Do you have any family traditions?
[Putina] If we are at home then as a rule we spend holidays in a close circle: Our own family and perhaps some close friends.
[Gamov] And what about presents?
[Putina] Either I do not give any at all or if I do decide to give them then I think about them and choose them carefully. As if they were for me. I like giving and receiving useful things. Although I am impatient: When I buy a birthday present two months in advance I have to give it immediately, I can't wait.
[Gamov] And Vladimir Vladimirovich?
[Putina] In that sense he has always surprised me. He is self-controlled and patient in those cases. We were on vacation together one winter. On the morning of my birthday I woke up and on the night table next to me was a gold chain and cross. It turned out he had got it ready two months earlier when we went to Jerusalem together, he had bought the cross there, had it blessed at the Holy Sepulchre, and gave it to me.
Belief in god is very personal
[Gamov] Komsomolskaya Pravda recently printed extracts from an interview given by archimandrite Tikhon, abbot of the Sretenskiy monastery and Vladimir Vladimirovich's confessor, given to the Greek newspaper Khora. He says that all the members of the president's family are Orthodox believers, go to church, confess and take communion.
[Putina] Yes, that is so. We go to church about once a month.
[Gamov] What does faith mean for you?
[Putina] I do not like to talk about it just like that, out loud, in public. It is very personal.... Although I can say that faith can be a unifying factor for people.
[Gamov] Does that apply only to Orthodox Christians?
[Putina] It seems to me that in the bright, harmonious future of which many people dream mankind must come to a single faith. Or at least to the mutually-respectful coexistence of different faiths - without wars, without spite, without violence. Because the Orthodox religion like, incidentally, the majority of other religions, preaches the ideas of reciprocal love and tolerance above all...
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