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Moscow Time
October 7, 2002
Picking the Perfect Present for Putin
By Kevin O'Flynn
Staff Writer
The birthday cards are on the way, and so are the presents -- pity the postman.
Fifty years ago, on Oct. 7, 1952, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born. The president's birthday on Monday will see the climax of a political frenzy to congratulate the president, marked by over-the-top rhetoric, expensive presents and displays of devotion reminiscent of the best Soviet traditions, albeit with a touch of cynicism thrown in.
Putin won't have a Marilyn Monroe to serenade him as President John F. Kennedy did in 1962 for his 45th birthday -- although there was talk of a concert by Iosif Kobzon -- but fellow politicians, regional leaders and the heads of CIS states at a regional summit in Chisinau on Monday will all have kinds words and extravagant gifts for the president.
Late last month, the Argumenty i Fakty weekly asked what the biggest political problem in Russia is at the moment. "Not the 2003 budget, not Chechnya and not the fires in the Moscow region," the newspaper wrote, but "what to give V. Putin for his 50th birthday."
The newspaper Vremya MN commented with a touch of sarcasm that Monday will produce a show called "How I Love the President."
The general impression from Russian media reports is of a political elite in a desperate search for the perfect present to impress Putin.
Talk is buzzing round political circles that Mayor Yury Luzhkov's plan to return the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky to Lubyanskaya Ploshchad, just outside the former KGB headquarters, was an early birthday present for the president. Luzhkov is also reported to have offered to name a street or square after him.
Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin said Sunday that deciding what to give the leader of his most powerful neighbor was a real toughie. Should it be a horse or a case of vintage wine from Moldova's famed Cricova wine cellars, Voronin, president of Europe's poorest country, wondered in an interview with a Moldovan newspaper, Moldavskiye Vedomosti. "This is one of the most difficult problems that I have not yet resolved," said Voronin, Reuters reported.
Voronin may be upstaged, though, if the rumors are true that Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev will name one of the peaks of the Tian Shan mountains after the Russian president.
If Putin doesn't get a mountain, then he may get a new pet. Foreign leaders seem like giving him animals. He has been given an Akhal-Teke horse from Turkmenistan, and three Arabian horses presented to Putin this spring by King Abdullah of Jordan have been living at the Moscow Hippodrome.
Although Putin likes horses and is known to ride, he doesn't seem too keen on antelopes. The one he was given by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is now languishing far from its new owner in a zoo in Penza, Izvestia reported.
The most extravagant present announced so far is a copy of the Shapka Monomakha, or the Cap of Monomakh, the ancient ceremonial crown used at the coronation of the tsars, which is to be given to the president not by a politician but by the Academy of Jewelry Art, which created it. It's not known yet whether the president will accept the gift, a symbol of total power and dominance.
The presidential press service refused to comment on any presents or postcards received for Putin's birthday.
Some politicians are taking a more down-to-earth approach to the big day. First Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matviyenko said she would simply congratulate the president with some flowers. Newspapers have reported that the president is not fond of ostentatious presents, and all the presents are passed on to good causes, although that doesn't seem to have helped the Kremlin postman.
Readers of Argumenty i Fakty took a varied attitude to the president's birthday, suggesting an ingenious selection of presents -- from the obsequious to the bloodthirsty.
Presents perhaps on their way to the Kremlin from the suggestions published last week include a painting of the present day landscape of Chechnya, the head of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, a kneeling Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, a plane on skis, a trip on a rocket and a bucket of lilies.
Employees from a travel agency had the most inspired suggestion, playing on Putin's famous vow, when talking of Chechen rebels, to "mochit v sortire" or "to waste them in the outhouse," saying they'd present him with a portable toilet "so that he could waste whomever he wanted when he wanted, whether he was on a business trip or on holiday."
If the president is still feeling unloved after all that pampering, then his Unity party has made sure he feels wanted by organizing a mass write-in from children around the country. From the Rostov region alone, Izvestia reported, at least 30,000 postcards have been winging their way to the Kremlin. Thousands more have come from all over the country, from Irkutsk to Ufa.
The action, called Napishi Prezidentu, asks children to send in their congratulations and any suggestions they have to Putin. The campaign has received the backing of the Education Ministry, which on behalf of Unity sent a letter to various educational institutions and children's homes urging them to take part.
"Vladimir Vladimirovich. I really would like for you to be president forever," said a letter from Ufa, as reported in Izvestia. "I'd like for you to come to our mill factory. We're waiting for you."
But it's unlikely that either the school population of the country or the Moldovan leader or anyone from Georgia -- unless he follows that head idea -- will come up with anything as original as the present created by the former deputy prime minister of Bashkortostan, Gabit Sabitov -- three pages of text addressed to Putin made up only of words beginning with the letter 'P,' Izvestia reported.
For obvious reasons this means the president is only referred to by his surname in the three sections, Proshloye Putina, Prazdniki Prezidenta Putina and Perspektivy Prezidenta Putina, or The Past of Putin, The Holidays of President Putin and President Putin's Prospects. The text finishes with the sentence, "Po Planete postavyat pamyatniki Pervomy Prezidentu Planety Putinu" or "All around the planet they will put up monuments to the first president of the planet, Putin."
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