The Media Mirror – this weekend’s press
Dmitry Medvedev on state capitalism and other things. A novel way to deal with the U.S. Andrzei Wajda: Ambassador of friendship. And being drunk in Moscow – a foreigner’s view.
OGONYOK has a cartoon that shows how Red square would look when Russia resumes annual military parades in full imperial glory in May.
ITOGI’s picture of the week is a window on the presidential race – candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky on a visit to a women’s jail in Moscow.
PROFILE dedicates several pages to direct quotes from Dmitry Medvedev. On the economy: “My position remains unchanged: traditional state capitalism is a dead end.” On relations with the U.S.: “Definitely I don’t see Russia’s role as being an opponent of America. God save us from the perception that Russia has to copy the Soviet Union. The standards of our political system and way of life are totally different now. These standards dictate our political priorities.”
NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA. Dr. Alexey Bogaturov of the Institute of International Security writes: “A critical attitude to the U.S. doesn’t cloud our ability to admit a score of useful functions performed by the U.S. in the world. Resolving the World’s problems is unimaginable without America. Maybe it’s time to create a World League for Cooperation with the U.S.? The problem is making America its chairman makes no sense, but America won’t have it any other way.”
ITOGI. The famous Polish director Andrzei Wajda has made a movie about the Katyn massacre of Polish prisoners of war by the NKVD in 1940. It's one of the darkest pages in the history shared by Poland and Russia. “Friendship between the two peoples has always existed, and it has its mediators when in trouble. I know - I’m one of them,” adds the director of 'Man of Iron.'
PROFILE. A correspondent spent some time with a group of expats trying in vain to sober up. A British friend took him to an Irish pub. What, inquired the journalist, are Englishmen going to an Irish pub? “The booze makes peace in Moscow, and teaches political correctness. Besides, if the IRA guys drank as much as we do here, they wouldn’t be able to plant a single bomb. When I drank my normal Moscow tipple in London my friends wrote me off for a living corpse, but here I’m OK, I’m quite an average drinker,” the Englishman answered.
