Today I will deal with an issue that receives no attention whatsoever on Russian talk shows. On the contrary, they have become accessories to the problem. Both of my favorite television programs of this genre, The Great Game and Evening with Vladimir Solovyov now open with 15 minutes or more of the day’s speech to the nation by Vladimir Putin. I say ‘now’ because it wasn’t this bad even six months ago.
The daily Putin speeches reflect a special feature of Russia’s official calendar. Nearly every calendar day celebrates one or another of the multitude of Russia’s civilian professions or dedicated divisions of the military. So, there is a day of airmen, a day of the marines, a day of artillerymen; or a day of IT workers, a day of medical nurses, a day of public-spirited volunteers, etc., etc. Putin delivers his praise and encouragement to each of them for the whole nation to hear.
Any days which are not highlighting a given career line are used to commemorate some important battle from World War II or from the many ground and sea battles of Imperial Russia going back to the 18th century if not earlier. And for good measure, there is the day of the Order of St George and a day for the St Andrew’s flag (yesterday), which Peter the Great approved in 1703 to fly on ships of the Russian navy.
President Putin’s administration provides the speeches for each of these events that, we may assume, do not especially resonate with the broad population. And by the order of someone in the news department of Russian state television, most likely Dmitry Kiselyov, they now fill the opening segments of those talk shows and are repeated on each and every news bulletin during the day.
As if this daily tedium were not enough, Russian television is presently heavily promoting Putin’s annual Direct Line program, when the whole nation is invited to send in by email, telephone call or other designated channels the questions they would like Vladimir Vladimirovich to answer live on air. D-day is 19 December at 12.00 noon Moscow time. Today’s news already is showing the gals at work in the Moscow call center taking down questions and working at lists of the categories of issues that trouble callers the most. All major television channels will carry Direct Line live for as many hours as it runs and then will offer excerpts on their news shows.
Traditionally many of the questions are not actually questions but requests for presidential intervention to solve one or another problem in some given locality from across the land or some personal problem. The President will direct his staff or regional government leaders to deal immediately with the problem and then there may well be follow-up reporting in the next day or two showing that no request goes unresolved.
In its own way, Dieect Line is one of the parallel structures to the State Duma and offices of regional governors that have grown up in the Putin era to ensure that The Boss is properly informed of what is on people’s minds and to take action to redress injustice or failures at the local level. That is the positive side of it. On the negative side, it is one more glaring example of how the presidency hogs the airwaves.
I think it would be unfair to call this a cult of personality. But it is an intrusion on people’s free time and desire to be left alone when they close their door on the world each evening. As it is, the daily reporting on the war in Ukraine from the front lines takes an inordinate amount of news time without giving the public a proper sense of how close or far away is victory.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024