Translated material
President
Dmitry Medvedev summed up the year
Yesterday, Dmitry Medvedev summed up the results of the year live on three main federal TV channels - First, Rossiya and NTV. One of the main results was a fundamental change in the format of communication between the head of state and the population. Firstly, he communicates with people on the Internet, and secondly, in the past year, for the first time in Russian history, he directly appealed to the population to send proposals for modernizing the country to the Kremlin e-mail address.Unlike his predecessor Vladimir Putin, who holds large press conferences and television “direct lines” with the entire country, the current head of state prefers communication in other formats.
In the series “Conversation with Dmitry Medvedev,” and yesterday’s final interview was also part of it, nine programs were broadcast during the year, dedicated to current problems facing the country.
Yesterday's conversation, naturally, began with summing up the results of an extremely difficult year from an economic point of view. According to the Russian president, the most important result of the year should be considered the preservation of social stability in the country. Here he turned to a topic that is also favorite with Vladimir Putin - he recalled raising pensions. “No social obligation has been terminated. On the contrary, this year we are moving to a new pension payment system. Pensions increased by almost a third in nominal terms and a quarter in real terms. And next year this work will continue,” said Mr. Medvedev.
The second positive result is ensuring financial stability: “The year started very anxiously. The government and the Central Bank needed to make every effort to restore order in the financial and credit sector, ensure the stability of the national currency, ensure the normal operation of our banks, prevent them from collapsing, and prevent the scenario that happened in 1998 from developing. All this was done. The financial system is stable, it works, moreover, this year we will get inflation significantly lower than last year. Last year it was about 13%, and this year it will be around 9%,” the president said.
In general, Dmitry Medvedev did not give many figures in the interview. Unlike Vladimir Putin, who always in public speeches likes to use an abundance of numbers that he keeps in his head. Dmitry Medvedev spoke more about global trends. “If we had continued a period of rapid and very prosperous development associated with rising energy prices, perhaps the decision on the need for a complete modernization of our economy and a transition to an innovative path of development would have happened a little later. But now we are all absolutely sure that without a transition to modernization our economy has no future, even despite the fact that it relies on the enormous natural resources of our country. They fed our ancestors, and they feed us. But we can’t eat up natural resources all the time, although we have a lot of them,” he said about his vision of the future of Russia. The word “modernization” could not help but be heard: in 2009, with the light hand of the president, it became the main word in the political lexicon of Russia.
“It doesn’t matter whether the earth is cooling or warming, we still need to change the ecology of the planet. I will say frankly that I am dissatisfied with the results of Copenhagen, it turned out to be nothing, an empty phrase. Unfortunately, we couldn’t come to an agreement, and I’ll say this carefully, it’s not the fault of the Russian Federation, but we will still work on energy efficiency. Because even if all the forecasts that exist today about climate change turn out to be frivolous or irrelevant, we will still at least improve the atmosphere in which we live,” he commented on the results of the climate summit.
In the interview, and this one also felt the influence of the upcoming holiday, there were many personal questions - about relationships with Vladimir Putin and his own wife. “We still have a special relationship, it’s a comradely, friendly relationship, it hasn’t changed. I’m sure they won’t change,” he said of his interactions with Mr. Putin. “They behave decently, in my opinion. They don’t bother me,” he answered with a smile when asked how his wife and son bear the burden of the first family of the state.
And he even talked about what kind of music his son, Ilya, listens to. “It would be strange if my son listened to the same music that I listened to, because this is music from 40 years ago, at least when it comes to classic rock. Although sometimes he allows himself to do so. You know, he, like many young people, he is now 14 years old, is a fan of the so-called alternative rock, or alternative. I don’t understand much about this, but I know some groups and even sometimes listen to them, including the group Linkin Park. He also listens to some of our groups, for example he listens to “Spleen”, sometimes he listens to “Time Machine”, surprisingly,” said Dmitry Medvedev.
Even attentive viewers were able to find out that the head of the Russian state will celebrate the New Year at home, that he is now reading Vasily Klyuchevsky and Erich Maria Remarque and most of all misses “from his past life” the lack of free time.