At the time, the offer seemed reasonable. The Kremlin had arranged a trip to Siberia, ostensibly to give Western correspondents a window on Russian President Vladimir Putin at work, on the road and unfiltered, as he prepared for his almost certain re-election later this month.
Then the Kremlin boarded up the window.
No, the Russian leader would not be taking any questions at any time, a red-faced Kremlin aide in a full-length fur coat told us late last month as we listened in disbelief in the lobby of the Agni Yenisey Hotel. And no, we wouldn’t actually ever see Putin in the flesh.
But when he met with students at a local university, we could watch every minute via closed-circuit television in a nearby room. Later, when Putin met with regional bureaucrats, we could soak in every platitude and directive–via closed-circuit television.
Look at it this way, the aide explained: “If you were back in Moscow, you’d see about 20 percent of these events on state television newscasts. Now you’ll see 100 percent.”
Putin’s reputation for manhandling the media in Moscow is notorious and deserved. A recent book by a Russian journalist describes a president who keeps Russian reporters waiting for hours on frigid tarmacs and blacklists journalists deemed too critical. Questions are vetted by Kremlin aides before they’re submitted, on the few occasions they’re even allowed.
“Putin’s press service introduced a very tough carrot-and-stick policy,” Yelena Tregubova wrote in “Tales of a Kremlin Digger,” which arrived in Russian bookstores last fall. “If it liked your reporting, you’d get the green light to attend all the major events. If not, you’d cover Putin’s motorcade.”
The Kremlin’s influence on the media has become particularly apparent in recent weeks, as Putin readies his bid for re-election March 14. Most state television newscasts begin with long, fawning segments on the president meeting foreign dignitaries or listening intently to a Cabinet minister’s report. Two state channels, RTR and Channel 1, broadcast in its entirety a 29-minute speech Putin gave Feb. 12 to kick off his campaign, even though commandeering the airwaves for campaign purposes is a violation of equal-time provisions in Russia’s election laws.
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The Kremlin has another artful campaign tactic: State television camera crews follow Putin on the road, as he christens a new trans-Russian highway in Khabarovsk or oversees Russia’s biggest military exercises in 20 years. The latter move backfired; ballistic missile launches from submarines in the Barents Sea failed on successive days in mid-February and created a public-relations disaster for Putin.
The trip to Krasnoyarsk wasn’t nearly as risky. First he would lay flowers on the grave of a revered Soviet-era writer who lived and worked in Ovsyanka, a tiny village outside Krasnoyarsk. Then he would answer questions from a roomful of students at Siberian State Technological University and end the day with a meeting with city and regional leaders.
Bisected by the vast Yenisey River, Krasnoyarsk is a working-class industrial city that combines sprawling complexes of Soviet-era high-rises with stretches of weathered log cabins.
The city has several decent hotels, none of which had any available rooms, the Kremlin insisted.
That relegated reporters to the Agni Yenisey, a drab, gray building with an elevator that didn’t work and a cockroach problem. Budget hotels in Russian provincial cities are replete with oddities, and the Agni Yenisey appeared to have them all. Breakfast was a plate of hard-boiled eggs slathered in mayonnaise. In every room, each furnishing–the bed, an ashtray, a desk drawer, the mini-fridge that didn’t work–had a number corresponding to a list with the item’s name and price. You break it or take it . . . you pay.
My room, 437, had its own issues. The toilet tank was bone-dry. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had water–the flush handle was gone. The bathroom sink didn’t work. The shower did, but the water trickled and the pipes sounded like someone screaming.
The Kremlin parceled out its bad news in doses. On Tuesday, the day we arrived, Kremlin aides said Putin wouldn’t be arriving until late Thursday. Thursday afternoon, the red-faced Kremlin aide gathered correspondents and camera crews into the lobby of the Agni Yenisey to tell us we had flown 2,200 miles to watch Putin on television.
The aide appeared to be braced for every angry query. So you had us fly over three time zones to watch TV screens? “It was your decision to come here,” she said. “If it’s useful to you, that’s your business.” What about this mangy hotel? “Everything else in town is booked.” Besides, she said, she and her fellow Kremlin presidential press service aides have stayed in worse places. “Once we stayed in a children’s sanitarium. We never complain.”
Russian journalists in the group could accompany Putin to Ovsyanka, where the president would pay homage to the dead writer, Viktor Astafyev. But like everything else on the trip, there was a catch. When Putin met with Astafyev’s widow, Russian journalists could not ask the widow any questions. No questions to Putin either.
For that matter, Russian journalists would be barred from questioning anyone in the village. “Nyelzya,” snapped the Kremlin aide in the big fur coat. “It’s not allowed.”