The international economic forum, held in St Petersburg, is called sometimes “Russian Davos” and two years ago German Gref made a provocative statement that Davos is just a small Swiss village while St Petersburg is St Petersburg. Well, while it still has a long way to go to get to the Davos level, the Petersburg venue has already surpassed the Russian economic forum held in London where our VIP’s did not go, taking advice by Vladimir Putin.    

Last weekend the whole world gathered in the city. The Russian elite arrived in their private aircraft; some came by sea. Roman Abramovich’s yacht looked astonishingly being moored at the English Quay. While common people were listening to Roger Waters’ music, the beau monde enjoyed the “VIP art”. Their cultural program comprised reception by Governor Valentina Matvienko and it was possible to make expensive buys in the exhibition complex Lenexpo during the breaks between the events - just elite mobile phones (up to $150,000 per each) and super elite cells made from gold and decorated with diamonds. Also small planes sold like hot cakes.      

Ten thousand people took part in the forum, including Dmitry Medvedev. There was a hope till the last moment that Vladimir Putin would also come. On the first day, during the awarding ceremony of the “Global Energy” prize the presenter even committed a “terrible” mistake: when announcing the Russian president he began “and now meet the President of Russia Vladim…” and only after a grave pause he continued “Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev!” The current president burst into laughing.    

The spirit of a high life reception dominated at the forum events. Russian ministers, acting like moderators at the conferences, smiled to right and left and recommended that those taking the floor make jokes. Round tables also turned into liberal salons unexpectedly. This way, there was a strong argument about corruption at the conference titled “Transparency and efficiency of the state institutions”. Anton Ivanov, the chair of the Supreme Court of Arbitration, suggested reducing the number of the state officials for 40%. Elena Mizulina, MP, required that the reform of the Supreme Court and prosecution bodies be carried out. Nominally unemployed Anatoly Chubais even dared to say a ‘sedition’: “We should assess the state from the point of view of quality of the services it renders to the economy and to the country on the whole. Governor. Minister. Government. President. Assessment of this service is impossible without real feedback and real competitive political mechanism”.       

What was happening made the foreigners perplexed. They tried to comprehend why Medvedev accused the USA aggressively of “economic egoism” and “economic nationalism”, while Chubais announced the coming of the era of “new Russian liberalism”. While Igor Shuvalov, the first deputy prime minister, promised reduction of number of the State’s representatives in the leadership of the largest corporations, the vice-president of RSSP Igor Yurgens made a statement that it would be difficult to do it quickly. And Michael Klein, the head of “City group” even called Russian economy to be invisible, as 85% of its export consists of raw materials, not with end product.        

The round table meeting titled “What Russia is” was intended to help understanding the home contradictions. The participants were offered to talk about the “Russian way” in non-economic language. “I appreciate the wit of the forum organizers who left this round table for afters. Otherwise, the businessmen might have left without any contracts concluded” commented one of the participants, the journalist Vitaly Tretyakov. 

The round table was featured with address by a rock musician Yuri Shevchuk who spoke about destruction of architectural monuments of St Petersburg (the photos were distributed by him among the present journalists) and about propaganda of chauvinism instead of patriotism. He also said there is no democracy in the country, there is only making the youth culturally primitive. The Shevchuk’s speech was repeatedly interrupted with applause.  

In the discussion, that followed, the political scientist Nikonov said that nothing spoils Russia’s image worse than Russia herself does. Yuri Shevchuk retorted he does not spoil the image and he only calls to be more sincere and honest and to show all the sides of the Russian life, so that other people stop being afraid of Russia. Among other opinions were that the West itself violates its own principles and has no moral grounds to blame Russia, and if Russia is “taken away” piece by piece, so why can’t we become chauvinists (this was said by a TV host Maxim Shevchenko). Alexander Archangelsky said that it would be better to re-direct our energy from argument with Ukraine to struggle with corrupted police and with the lack of independent court. Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin suggested submitting to the fact that for Russia integrity of the state matters more than a human life. And Yuri Shevchuk promised he would struggle for the youth.