Successor for an hour

A politician with the last name Medvedev cannot lose. His failure in the elections or mechanical withdrawal for the sake of another successor (with the exception, of course, of Putin) could cause the collapse of the party brand with which his name is most closely associated.
How far-sighted were the mothers and fathers who left him such an ideologically correct surname as a legacy! Among the Vladilenovs and Oktyabrins, the Leningrad boy Dima Medvedev may have once looked like a simpleton, but that time has long passed. Now he is the most likely candidate for the throne, and all the “bears” and “teddy bears” are touchingly frozen in anticipation of President Medvedev’s sovereign move.
He is young and mocking, he has a sly, good-natured face, and this reassures the most desperate pessimists in Russia. He is liberal, has an excellent knowledge of Roman law and does not agree with the Kremlin security forces on everything, and the West likes this. Can such a person give the signal for the start of mass repression? Or lower the visor of the Iron Curtain? No, all the fears caused by President Putin’s famous speech at Luzhniki can now be forgotten. Who will be afraid of a boy if he is allowed to rule a great country?
And no one seems to doubt that he will be allowed to steer. Until the first turn, and then get off, boy, give way to the driver.
Because a surname is one thing, and a given name is another. But with the name, Dima’s parents clearly let us down. It is now fashionable to draw historical parallels with the era of “1612”. From the foggy haze emerges the figure of another Dmitry, who sat down as king in the Moscow Kremlin at the very height of the Time of Troubles. He, too, as the chroniclers wrote, was young, energetic and full of progressive ideas (especially after his stay in enlightened Poland). And he knew Roman law quite well. He was careless - he didn’t notice the grins of yesterday’s guardsmen (then security forces) behind his back. He intended to carry out pro-Western reforms. How it ended is known: False Dmitry I ruled Russia for no more than a year and was executed as an “enemy of Russia.”
However, times are more vegetarian now, so a specialist in Roman law has nothing to fear. The most that awaits him is - get off, boy.

Valery BERESNEV