Champagne crisis

St. Petersburg Economic Forum ends the political season

Previously, this invisible curtain fell when the State Duma went on vacation. Now the calendar of what was once the Russian parliament is of no interest to anyone. At all venues, the executive branch is the soloist. And no one but her.

Petersburg forum in the "presidential" format is held for the fourth time. During this time, a tradition has developed to demonstrate unbridled optimism on it. The first persons of the state, speaking in St. Petersburg, in previous years promised: that in the foreseeable future Russia will enter the top five leading economies in the world, that the income of citizens will reach $30,000 a year, that our country will become a world leader in a number of high-tech industries.

Critical opinions about the prospects of the domestic economy were rarely heard at the forum. That is why so many remember last year's speech by First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, who allowed himself to talk not about achievements, but about problems. But he, and no one, could predict the crisis that broke out in the country just three months later.

It would seem that Forum 2009 is an ideal platform for moving away from the rhetoric of unbridled optimism and putting the real problems caused by the crisis at the center of the discussion. But nothing happened: the speeches of the first persons, Medvedev and Putin, showed that they are true to the covenant “Russians have their own pride” in any conditions, even when the industry is heading down and banks are crippled from growing debts.

All the negativity contained in the president's speech was directed at international partners (primarily the United States), who "overlooked". The President repeated well-known theses: the global financial architecture needs to be changed, there should be several centers of responsibility. In addition, the “key” questions for the current Russian elite were once again raised that it is necessary to change the rules of the energy game in the world in order to take into account the interests of suppliers more, that it is necessary to expand the set of world reserve currencies (meaning the inclusion of number and ruble), and finally, the transformation of Russia into a world financial center (“Nobody removed this task”). At the same time, Medvedev managed not to say a word either about the industrial decline, or about the fall in GDP, or about the growing budget deficit - after all, a hole of 30%, or about unemployment, or about the plight of single-industry towns. And he mentioned high inflation only when answering a question from host Maria Bartiromo from CNBC. On the other hand, the president repeated several times the words that "in recent months we have stabilized the situation in the financial sector" and that "we have passed the crisis months according to the least painful scenario." And although at the beginning of his speech, the president, describing the situation, said that “it’s too early to open champagne,” at the end of it it would be quite appropriate to “shoot” the cork. Well, they definitely drank in Pikalevo - although not champagne - after Prime Minister Putin stopped by there on the way to the forum and solved all the problems in one fell swoop: workers were transferred wage debts to cards, they promised to turn on hot water, and the owners, apparently , it will still be possible to shake off its debt-laden cement assets to the state.

As they say, the general said, the lieutenants picked up. Of the three dozen "round tables" planned at the forum, only 3-4 are devoted to the crisis itself. The rest are about life after: “Post-Crisis Financial Architecture”, “Educating Future Leaders”, “The Future of Payment Systems”, “The Future of Reserve Currencies”, etc. In general, the matter is small: somehow get out of the crisis, and we will live there ... Meanwhile, Medvedev’s speech contained quite reasonable words: “If we just survive the crisis, we will lose years and eventually find ourselves in the face of a new crisis , more dramatic. But this thesis was not developed in the speech.