Low-Key Birthday For Putin
By Carl Schreck
Staff Writer
MOSCOW —With little of the hype that characterized the run-up to his 50th birthday, President Vladimir Putin was set to celebrate his birthday Friday with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in what could well be Schroeder’s final foreign visit as his country’s leader. Schroeder arrived in St. Petersburg on Thursday evening on a private visit as a guest of Putin, who turns 53 on Friday. Spokesmen for the Kremlin and the German Embassy in Moscow said Thursday that they did not know what celebratory events were planned, but Friday is the second and final day of a Central Asian Cooperation Organization summit, which has brought leaders from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to the city. German Embassy spokesman Wolfgang Bindseil said that while Schroeder’s visit was a private one, Putin and the chancellor might address Russian-German relations at a news conference scheduled for Friday evening. Putin was the guest of honor at Schroeder’s 60th birthday party in April 2004. Negotiations between Schroeder and opposition leader Angela Merkel, who are competing to lead Germany’s next government after elections last month which saw Schroeder’s government narrowly defeated, appeared set to last through the weekend, The Associated Press reported Thursday. Schroeder will return to Germany early Saturday morning, Bindseil said. There has been markedly less pomp in the run-up to Putin’s birthday compared to the political frenzy to congratulate him that marked his 50th birthday three years ago, which Putin spent at a CIS summit in Chisinau, the Moldovan capital. In September 2002, the Argumenty i Fakty newspaper asked what was the country’s biggest political problem. “Not the 2003 budget, not Chechnya and not the fires in the Moscow region,” the newspaper wrote, but “what to give V. Putin for his 50th birthday.” According to media reports, Putin is not a big fan of ostentatious presents, though he did accept a diamond-encrusted Super Bowl ring from New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft after a meeting with U.S. business executives in St. Petersburg in June. Kraft later said it was a present, though it was speculated initially that Putin pocketed the ring when Kraft merely meant to show it to him. Bindseil said he did not know what Schroeder planned to give Putin as a present, and a Kremlin spokesman said he could not comment on other gifts Putin was to receive. The press service for Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said he planned to give Putin something nice, “but also useful,” Moskovsky Komsomolets reported Thursday. Meanwhile, opposition groups are planning to hold a small demonstration Friday evening in Moscow to commemorate Putin’s birthday. Members of the Garry Kasparov-led United Civil Front and the youth group My, or We, plan to don Putin masks and prisoners’ caps and carry birthday cakes, while giving people a chance to write postcards to Putin, Natalya Alexandrovskya, head of UCF’s Moscow branch, said Thursday. “The prisoners’ caps are a symbol of what is increasingly becoming a police state,” Alexandrovskaya said. “These days anybody can land up in prison.” The demonstration will start at about 6:30 p.m. near Pushkin Square, Alexandrovskaya said. A Kremlin spokesman said those wishing to send gifts to Putin could send letters and packages to the postal address listed on the Kremlin’s web site. He said he did not know if any presents had arrived as of Thursday.
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