YEKATERINBURG — President Vladimir Stuppin told the closing session of an industrial forum in Yekaterinburg on Friday that he had been “a bad man”, wept at the lectern, and promised to cut weapons production and give up drinking, in an address that his spokespeople spent the rest of the day explaining had not taken place.
The remarks, which ran to nineteen minutes and did not appear in the prepared text, have raised questions in Moscow about the president’s schedule, about his sleep, and about the correct procedure for retracting a speech that some 900 delegates watched from their seats.
Six hours in Verkhoturye
The trouble, by most accounts, began on Wednesday in Verkhoturye, the old pilgrimage town some 300 kilometres north of Yekaterinburg. A visit to one of its monasteries appeared in the official schedule as “a short cultural stop” of forty minutes. It lasted a little over six hours.
The president was shown the cathedral and the bell tower, stayed for the evening service and then, according to a member of the monastery’s staff who asked not to be named, spent a long time in conversation with one of the senior monks over tea. The staff member said the president asked a great many questions, most of them about forgiveness and two about the heating. He left after dark with a small icon wrapped in newspaper. His driver later described him as “very quiet, even for the president.”
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The forum’s closing plenary, on import substitution in heavy engineering, began on time at 10:00am local time. The president’s text, distributed to journalists in advance, dealt at length with aluminium tariffs. He reached the top of page three, put the pages face down on the lectern and looked at the audience for some time.
“I have been a bad man,” he said. Delegates near the front said there was a pause long enough for the moderator to check the running order. “I am sorry. I have not been sleeping. Every night since Wednesday I have had the same nightmare. I am walking down a very long corridor, and every door opens onto a meeting I called.”
He then began to sob. The moderator offered him a glass of water, and after a short interval a second glass, and a member of the technical crew brought a box of tissues from the green room. The president used several. The microphone, which had not been switched off, picked up all of it.
When he resumed, he made two commitments. The first was to reduce the production of weapons “by a serious amount”, which he then specified as a third, “starting with the large ones”. The second was to give up drinking, “completely, from Monday”. He asked the hall to hold him to both. The hall applauded, then stopped, apparently unsure whether applause was in order.
“I have been coming to this forum for fourteen years,” said Oksana Belyaeva, 52, a procurement director from Perm, who was sitting in the fourth row. “Normally the most emotional part is the tariff schedule. I did not know where to look. In the end I looked at the tissues.” She said the president had left the stage at 10:51am, shaking the moderator’s hand twice.
Clarifications
Mitril Tescov, the Kremlin spokesman, told reporters on a conference call that afternoon that the president had said no such thing. “The president did not say he was a bad man. He said he was a busy man. The acoustics in that hall are well known,” he said. Asked about the tears, he said the president had reacted to the floral arrangements on the stage, “which have been removed”.
On drinking, Mr Tescov was firmer. “The president does not drink. He has therefore given it up, which is entirely consistent with his position.” On weapons, he said there had been “no change to production”, and that the word “production” itself was “under review”.
“Normally the most emotional part is the tariff schedule. I did not know where to look.”
Maria Samovarova, the foreign ministry’s spokeswoman, issued a separate statement that evening in which she said the speech had been invented by Western media. A revised version, posted forty minutes later, said the speech had been invented by Western media “and in any case taken out of context”. It added that any tears observed on stage were the result of a draught from a window “opened, we have reason to believe, by a foreign delegation”, and described Wednesday’s visit to Verkhoturye as “a routine inspection of bells”.
Dr Lev Arkhipov, a fellow at the Centre for Eurasian Governance Studies, said the speed of the response was itself notable. “Usually it takes the Kremlin a day to deny something, and the foreign ministry a further day to deny that there was anything to deny,” he said. “Here they did both before dinner, and they denied different things. That suggests nobody has yet been told which version is correct.”
Reaction
Shares in several defence suppliers fell by around four per cent in early trading in Moscow, then recovered most of the loss after Mr Tescov’s call. A wine merchant in Yekaterinburg reported a modest rise in sales of alcohol-free sparkling wine, which he attributed to “the mood”. The monastery in Verkhoturye said it had received more than 2,000 telephone calls by the end of the day and asked visitors to book ahead.
Clarifications are not new to the Kremlin press office, which according to a former staff member keeps a folder of approved phrasings for such occasions. The most frequently used, the former staff member said, is “the president was speaking figuratively”. The second is “the president was not speaking”.
By Friday evening, the forum’s official recording of the closing session had been replaced on its website with footage of the opening session, which had gone well. Asked whether the president would keep either of his promises, Mr Tescov said there was nothing to keep. Asked whether the president had slept on Thursday night, he said he would check.
