To Carry Extra-Long Table where Putin Meets Subordinates, Moscow Plans for Him a New Plane 8.5 Times as Long as Current One, Russians Say

Paul Goble

Staunton, Aug. 8 – Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Vladimir Putin has been notorious for meeting people only at an extremely long table so that he can maintain social distance and avoid the risk of becoming infected. Now, Russians say, Moscow is planning to build him a new presidential plane 8.5 times as long as his current one to hold such a table. Pictures have already appeared on social media.

This is just one of the anecdotes Moscow journalist Tatyana Pushkaryova offers in her latest collection (publizist.ru/blogs/107374/43602/-). Among the best of the rest are the following:

 ·       The Russian elite really is divided: Some are applying for foreign residence permits, while others are writing denunciations of those who do.

 ·       Last year, Moscow spent more than three times as much on prisons as on high tech industry, the latest confirmation that you get what you pay for.

 ·       Russia is marking another triumph of import substitution. It takes Russian mechanics less than five percent as much time to take parts out of one plane and put them into another than it does for Western firms to manufacture the parts in the first place.

 ·       The decision of EU countries to subsidize their citizens so as to compensate them for higher gas prices is something Putin would never do and thus did not expect.

 ·       Feeling that a crisis is looming, some Russians are voting with their feet and leaving the country. Others are voting with other parts of their anatomies driving down the birthrate during the first six months of 2022 by 6.3 percent.