- MOSCOW -- Vladimir Putin declined to talk about warrior robots and a
mythical octopus, but he did attempt to answer the most popular question
posed by Russian Internet users during an on-line chat: "What did
you achieve by kissing the little boy Nikita on the stomach?"
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- The question, posed during a two-hour
BBC broadcast yesterday in which Mr. Putin answered questions from the
public, was inspired by an unusual incident last week in which the President
kissed a boy's belly.
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- As part of Mr. Putin's attempt to soften
his image ahead of the upcoming Group of Eight meetings, he recently hired
expensive New York-based image consultants who persuaded the Kremlin to
make the President available for a series of television appearances.
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- The first of these broadcasts was the
forum hosted by the BBC and Russia's biggest Internet portal, Yandex. The
show generally stuck to serious issues such as North Korea, Iran and Russia's
relations with the West.
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- But none of those issues were as popular
as the boy-kissing question, which attracted more than 11,000 votes on
the Yandex site.
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- Unlike some other popular requests for
comment -- about Cthulhu, a fictional octopus invented by the novelist
H. P. Lovecraft, or the likelihood that Russia might employ "giant,
humanoid war robots" to defend itself -- the question didn't come
entirely out of the blue.
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- Russian blogs and Internet message boards
have been awash with chatter since June 28, when Channel One, Russia's
largest broadcaster, showed Mr. Putin strolling past the golden domes and
white stone of an Orthodox church inside the Kremlin grounds.
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- The President paused at a gaggle of tourists,
and he seemed struck by the presence of a shy boy.
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- He grasped the fair-haired child by the
arm, squatted in front of him, and asked his name.
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- "Nikita," the boy answered.
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- Without further conversation, Mr. Putin
quickly pulled up the boy's white tank-top and planted a kiss on his belly.
Then he stood up, and brusquely walked away.
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- Russians are more likely than Westerners
to express affection with kisses, but even by local standards the kiss
was seen as overly familiar.
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- The phrase "Putin kissed a boy"
became the top-ranked search item on Yandex the following day, and one
blogger suggested the President might have been drunk.
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- Others speculated that it was a misguided
attempt by Mr. Putin to make a tender gesture, after years of being caricatured
in the media as a cold, disciplined former spy.
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- Mr. Putin seemed pleased to recount the
story.
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- "You know, there was a chance meeting
in the Kremlin, in the square," he said. "People came up, I
started to talk to them. Among them, this little boy, Nikita.
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- "He seemed sort of a boy all his
own, very serious. And at the same time, a kid, you know, unprotected,
defenseless. A very sweet child, really, a very smart kid.
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- "I tell you honestly, I just wanted
to touch him like a kitten and that desire of mine ended in that act. There
was really nothing behind it."
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- The kiss got little attention in the
Russian media, which is largely controlled by the state.
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- But the Izvestia daily newspaper found
the boy and identified him as five-year-old Nikita Konkin, who reportedly
refused to wash after the kiss.
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- "I just liked him and he liked me
very much," Nikita told the newspaper. "I want to be president
myself."
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- Besides his talk about meeting Nikita,
few of Mr. Putin's responses strayed from his previous statements.
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- He reiterated his defence of Russia's
energy policy, dismissing concerns about last winter's gas dispute with
Ukraine as "hysteria" and adding that the Kremlin does not use
oil and gas as political weapons.
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- "We now work on market principles,
purely and solely," he said.
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- On the subject of North Korea, Mr. Putin
said he's concerned about the recent missile tests but there is no need
for alarm because the North Koreans still don't have the technology to
strike thousands of kilometres away.
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- "When the means of delivery comes,
the problem deepens," he said.
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- Mr. Putin also described his friendship
with U.S. President George W. Bush, after harsh criticism from the United
States about Russia sliding back into authoritarianism.
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- On that front, he gave a lengthy defence
of media freedom in Russia and claimed that too many media outlets exist
in the country for censorship to be a practical possibility.
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- He defended the right of separatists
in Georgia to struggle for self-determination, but also dismissed the legitimacy
of separatists in Chechnya. "In the modern context, no armed struggle
against any constitutional establishment can be justified," he said.
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- http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060707.PUTIN07/
TPStory/TPInternational/Europe/
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