Available language – 2

In former (historically ancient) times there was such a section: “The newspaper spoke - measures were taken.” Today there is no such section. But the spirit of former times has not disappeared from the offices of the Mariinsky Palace and Smolny. Unless the vector has changed to the opposite one. Now measures are being taken not against the person the newspaper spoke about, but against the person who spoke and... against the newspaper itself. And if the deputies of the Legislative Assembly obstruct their colleague Sergei Gulyaev for daring to make public the debates of St. Petersburg parliamentarians by handing over a voice recording of the conversation to journalists, then Smolny sends a threatening letter to the newspaper. True, for a completely different reason. But the characters are the same: again deputy Sergei Gulyaev and his extremely unpleasant words addressed to the authorities... But let’s not intrigue the reader, let’s turn to the original source. Here is the full text of the letter received by the editor.

The newspaper spoke out - measures were taken... Against the newspaper

June 12, 2006. Sergei Gulyaev is no stranger to speaking at rallies

GOVERNMENT OF ST. PETERSBURG
PRESS COMMITTEE
AND INTERACTION WITH MEANS
MASS INFORMATION
Smolny, St. Petersburg, 191060
Tel. (812) 57640-95, Fax (812) 576-62-61
E-mail: kmMa@,gov.spb,ni
http://.gov.spb ru
OKPO 00021982 OKOGU 23010
INN 7830002078
06/05/2006 No. 15-14-650/06

To the newspaper editor
"Novaya newspaper in St. Petersburg"
N.A. Donskova

Dear Nikolai Alexandrovich!
On May 25, 2006, on the 22nd page of Novaya Gazeta in St. Petersburg, an article by Boris Vishnevsky was published under the heading “In an accessible language.”
This article disseminated untrue information that infringed on legitimate interests and discredited public authorities in St. Petersburg. We are talking about the following statement by Sergei Gulyaev, widespread in the newspaper: “For the city authorities, we are cattle, we only prevent them from allocating the necessary plots to “their” construction companies!”
As you are certainly aware, Article 49 of the Law of the Russian Federation “On the Mass Media” imposes on the journalist the obligation to verify the accuracy of the information he disseminates, as well as to respect the rights and legitimate interests of citizens and legal entities. One of the forms of showing respect is the unconditional fulfillment of the requirements of Art. 38 of the said law, which guarantees the right of citizens to receive reliable information about the activities of government bodies, organizations and their officials.
In fact, contrary to the information disseminated in your newspaper, none of the citizens are cattle for the state authorities of St. Petersburg, that is, speaking colloquially and contemptuously, people who wordlessly perform hard work for someone (see Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language by S. I. Ozhegov and N.Yu. In addition, the city authorities do not allocate the necessary sites to “their” construction companies; All procedures for the allocation of land plots are carried out in accordance with the requirements of current legislation, based on competitive procedures.
Current legislation places the burden of proving the accuracy of disseminated information on the editorial board of the mass media and on the journalist (see, for example, Article 152, paragraph 1, paragraph 1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).
In connection with the above, I earnestly ask you, in pre-trial order, to provide me with evidence that the information disseminated by your newspaper is true. If you do not have such evidence, I ask you to publish a refutation of the above information in the next edition of the newspaper, distributing the text of this letter as a refutation.

Sincerely,
First Deputy
Chairman of the Committee,
government representative
St. Petersburg: A.V. Vorobiev
(by power of attorney No. 07-125/1066 dated 06.12.05)

Like this.
Some clarification is needed here. Deputy Sergei Gulyaev said words that were offensive to the city authorities not somewhere on the sidelines, but during his speech to citizens at a mass rally against compaction development. Let us recall that according to the same Law on Mass Media, which is referred to in Smolny, Article 57 states that the editorial office is not responsible for fragments of official speeches by officials (which includes deputies). There is no provision for liability for the publication of opinions and judgments (how else can one evaluate the words of Sergei Gulyaev).
By the way, the fragment of the deputy’s speech does not even say that the city administration is abusing its duties; it only says that citizens and their representatives in the city parliament “prevent” them from doing this. That is, in other words, they perform a control function, guard the interests of the city, fulfilling their direct civic duties, as is expected in a democratic society.
As for the extremely offensive word “cattle” (addressed, we emphasize, not to the notorious authorities), then this word, let’s say, is not entirely from our vocabulary. However, it appeared on the pages of the newspaper out of a desire to maintain factual accuracy when characterizing the event. After all, direct speech, as is known, bears portrait features not only of those about whom they are talking and who is speaking, but also the very essence of what is happening. This is not to mention the fact that voters have the right to know what their deputy thinks and says when speaking in front of citizens like them.
However, one hears offensive words addressed to the authorities from residents of the city on the Neva almost every day. They are in the lines of angry letters that our readers bombard us with for one reason or another (including in connection with the infill development). We would venture to suggest that among letters of this kind, the word “redneck” might look perhaps the most, as they say now, politically correct.
However, we have digressed from the main point. And the main thing, in our opinion, is that there is an attempt to correct deputy Gulyaev, who is known for his impartial statements about officials, as well as representatives of all other branches of government. And at the same time - the “presumptuous” newspaper, which dared to reproduce these statements. These are the realities of today's “managed democracy.”

Editorial
Photo by Alexander BANKOV