Posted on 10/11/2005 3:00:48 PM PDT by lizol
Gifts and Gerhard for Putin’s Birthday By Carl Schreck
MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin received a double-barreled shotgun from German Chancellor Gerhard SchrÚder, a book about virgin soil from a fire-extinguishing farm worker and a heavy dose of sarcasm from Russia’s most famous prisoner as he celebrated his 53rd birthday on Friday.
The best present of all, Putin said, was the German chancellor’s arrival in St. Petersburg for the occasion. SchrÚder’s visit came as talks over who will lead Germany’s government drag on, and could well be his final foreign trip as his country’s leader.
Putin spent his birthday in St. Petersburg meeting with the leaders of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan at a summit of the Central Asian Cooperation Organization, as well as handing out medals of honor and talking shop with SchrÚder, whom he said he hoped to see again soon.
In Moscow, meanwhile, jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky passed on ironic birthday greetings to Putin via the pages of Friday’s Kommersant, and police broke up a small anti-Putin demonstration on Pushkin Square on Friday evening after protesters donned Putin masks and prisoners’ caps and called for the president’s ouster.
Putin and SchrÚder met Friday during the German chancellor’s two-day private visit, the two leaders’ eighth meeting this year. Putin was the guest of honor at SchrÚder’s 60th birthday last year, and the two leaders’ cozy relationship was on display again Friday.
“For me the best gift is that Mr. Federal Chancellor came to visit me,” Putin said at a news conference Friday evening, RIA-Novosti reported.
SchrÚder was pressed, to no avail, by journalists to reveal what gift he had brought for Putin.
“I can’t tell you about the present before I give it to him,” SchrÚder said, RIA-Novosti reported. “I can only say that it is related to the president’s interests and to Germany.”
A Kremlin spokesman said SchrÚder had given Putin a double-barreled shotgun, Regnum.ru reported Saturday. It was unclear in exactly what respect the gun was related to Germany.
Earlier Friday, Putin said that his best birthday present was an agreement to merge CACO with the Eurasian Economic Community, one of several overlapping regional organizations comprising former Soviet states — in the case of the EEC, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
“I consider the decision of my colleagues and friends to be the best birthday present,” Putin said in televised comments Friday, hours before SchrÚder’s visit bumped the merger from the top of Putin’s birthday wish list.
Earlier in the day, Putin presented Hero of Russia awards to actor Kirill Lavrov and Vyacheslav Chernukha, a farm mechanic from the Orenburg region who last year extinguished a fire that threatened to destroy $50,000 worth of grain.
Chernukha presented Putin with a book titled “The Planet of Virgin Soil,” and Putin invited the mechanic to have breakfast with the leaders attending the summit.
While SchrÚder’s visit was unofficial, he and Putin did address bilateral cooperation in their news conference, and Putin even commented on SchrÚder’s tenuous hold on power after his narrow defeat in last month’s German parliamentary elections.
“We all know how complicated the internal political events in Germany are becoming,” Putin said. “Nevertheless, you have found time to come here.”
Putin added that he would like high-level contacts between the two governments to “remain undisrupted, despite internal political events.” SchrÚder said that cooperation would continue should his conservative rival, Angela Merkel, assume the chancellorship, and he was optimistic that his Social Democrats would soon strike a deal with Merkel’s Christian Democrats.
“Everyone is deeply convinced of the great strategic importance of the development of relations between Russia and Germany, Russia and Europe,” SchrÚder said. “The likelihood that the two big parties will form a grand coalition is great.”
Asked when he would like to see SchrÚder again, Putin said, “Soon,” RIA-Novosti reported.
Khodorkovsky used the same word in expressing his desire to see Putin, though it was unclear on which side of the Matrosskaya Tishina walls the jailed oligarch meant in his wry birthday note to Putin published in Kommersant on Friday.
“We’ll see each other soon, God willing,” Khodorkovsky wrote. “Happy birthday!”
Khodorkovsky heaped biting, sarcastic praise on Putin, noting, “Unfortunately, for reasons that you well know, I don’t have an opportunity to congratulate you in person.”
Khodorkovsky also took an apparent jab at the difference between his own fate and that of billionaire Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, who is thought to be a loyal ally of the Kremlin.
“You are a generous person, and you clearly like football,” Khodorkovsky wrote to Putin.
Posters of Khodorkovsky were on prominent display at a small anti-Putin rally near Pushkin Square on Friday evening that was cut short by police.
Decked out in plastic Putin masks and striped prisoners’ caps, about 30 demonstrators showed up for the rally, which was organized by the Garry Kasparov-led United Civil Front and the youth group My, or We.
"President Vladimir Putin received a double-barreled shotgun from German Chancellor Gerhard SchrÚder"
The lame duck and the shotgun -ironic.
"It was unclear in exactly what respect the gun was related to Germany."
Russian-made gun, but maybe Ger had German engravers do something fancy with it...
...or maybe it's symbolic of how Schroeder's always shooting himself in the foot.
Schroeder at last find proper company ;-)
They're on sale in the USA too.
This man is a high-flyer, no doubt he'll find a high-rank job in politics or international business. I heard something about he could be appointed the Germany's Ambassador to the UN.
There are speculations that will become manager in Gazprom. It would be something close to Polish “negotiators” who made fatal for us deals with Gazprom. After they made those transactions they were becoming workers in various companies controlled by Gazprom. Corrupted bastards…
Yes, that's the right word - "speculations".
After they made those transactions they were becoming workers in various companies controlled by Gazprom. Corrupted bastards
Maybe. Business is business, nothing personal.
Corruption is not business and they are not businessmen but criminals. As long as they wont be punished there will be not justice in this country. I mean Polish side in particular, the rest it is not my business.
Has a legal action been taken against the alleged corrupted persons? Were they government officials or private businesspeople?
So, if a manager of PGNiG works in such a company, that doesn't mean that he works for Gazprom - the Polish side has a share which is, at least, isn't smaller, than Gazprom's.
How does this "work for Gazprom situation" look like?
For example Europolgaz, company created to collect money from transit fees from Yamal gas pipeline. 48% of shares belongs to Polish state, 48% to Gazprom and remaining 4% to Bartimpex (owned by Polish oligarch who earned fortune on “Russian” deals). Same structure, that we don’t own majority stake in such company is the first symptom of gigantic corruption (must be idiot or corrupt to accept something like this). In effect Poland earning almost nothing, transit thought Poland is for Gazprom the best business. So you can see for whom they are working for, who is gaining profits and who not. Some of those people were even caught taking bribes. But their bosses, read Polish government, especially ministers responsible for this sector are “innocent”. After all they are responsible personally cause they participated in negotiation process.
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