First of all, I want to say that I welcome any relief in terms of obtaining Russian citizenship for any category of people, especially former citizens of the Soviet Union. But this initial thesis is actually irrelevant to this case. Because the current change has a fairly obvious political rationale: the amendment was introduced to encourage people to enroll in the Voluntary Resettlement Assistance Program. The program should have been running for two years.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov used obscene language in a telephone conversation with his British counterpart David Miliband - at least, this is what The Telegraph newspaper writes. It is alleged that the Russian minister used the word "fuck" several times. In particular, he asked such a delicate question: “Who are you to fucking lecture me?!” (“Who are you, *****, to lecture me?!”) and in such “terms” he asked how well Miliband knew the history of Russia.

On September 12, the Duma adopted in the third reading a bill simplifying the procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship. True, it concerns only compatriots who are planning to return to their homeland within the framework of the State program to assist the voluntary resettlement of compatriots living abroad to the Russian Federation, adopted in June 2006.

For years now I have not tired of admiring the genius of the leaders of RIA Novosti and the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, who invented the Valdai Club. This event is strikingly adequate to the Russian government system. Two dozen prominent foreign experts on Russia agree to endure Vladimir Putin’s insults and ridicule. In return, they get a unique opportunity to ask “our everything” questions behind closed doors, not previously censored by the press service.

The night before yesterday I had dinner with one of my friends. The conversation was about the Russian stock market, which at that very moment went into a state of free fall. The most surprising thing was that the market opened with a fall after the meeting between Medvedev and Sarkozy, at which another agreement was signed on the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia. Remember that great line in “It’s Hard to Be a God”?