President Putin promised only 1.5 billion rubles and only for 2006-2007 to the St. Petersburg Higher School of Management when laying its cornerstone; after that, allegedly, there is uncertainty. Allegedly, because entrepreneurs were supposed to help establish the school, which Putin clearly stated in the same speech.

It seems, well, what is there to worry about after such definite words from the president? The money of Russian business cannot help but flow like a full-flowing river of milk into the jelly-filled banks of St. Petersburg, and the Mikhailovskaya dacha will certainly become a fairy-tale palace...

And here's the news: the state will finance the management school until 2010, 8 billion rubles will be spent on these purposes, ordered the Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. Unheard-of audacity: Putin promises 1.5 billion for 14 months - i.e. only 107 million per month, and Fradkov, if you subtract Putin's promise from the aforementioned 8 billion, threatens to pay 6.5 billion for 36 months, i.e. 180.5 million per month.

But if we imagine that Fradkov will start to carry out every order of the president with proportional zeal - oh, what will happen! For example, Putin distributed 680 billion rubles in his message between his two first vice-successors, and Fradkov suddenly issues a government decree, and his two first deputies receive more than a trillion! Or Putin orders Zurabov to calculate how much is needed for drug provision, and Fradkov, under the noise, hop - and fills pensioners with first-class drugs.

The budget, by the way, will probably hold up, and you might not even have to borrow – the additional income is high.

Who will the people be grateful to then, huh? To the modest and shy Mikhail Efimych, and not at all to the sun of the Russian economy, Vladim Vladimych.

Well, okay, but in reality, what, entrepreneurs don’t give money or what? Don’t they believe in the bright future of the Higher School of Management?

They probably do.

And these 8 billion rubles, which Putin's alma mater must have easily wheedled out of the budget, are a phenomenon akin to the fashion among governors for reappointment long before their terms expire. The idea of these experienced and far-sighted former elected representatives, they say, is this: after Putin, God knows what will happen, we must strike while the iron is hot.

Although it is unclear: what kind of business school is this that from the very beginning relies exclusively on government money? Apparently, it will teach its students on similar cases: how to prepare a government resolution after the president's speech in order to receive 8 billion rubles from the budget.

FIGURE OF THE WEEK: RUB 8 billion. Fradkov's case