Yesterday’s Potapenko speech has already become an internet hit, and here’s another brilliant moment from the same Moscow Economic Forum:
Speaking here is Pavel Grudinin, head of the Lenin State Farm (a large agricultural enterprise near Moscow) — one of the biggest agribusinesses in the Moscow region.
A shorthand transcript of the speech appears at 1:30.
At these words, applause breaks out in the hall.
Now let’s turn to the president’s address and see who was shown on screen for so long there, and whose imprisonment was so warmly welcomed by the participants at the Moscow Economic Forum:
And the hall is full of officials and businesspeople. No “non-systemic opposition” (opposition figures outside the Kremlin-approved political system) at all.
By the way, watch the Grudinin video to the end. There’s a remarkable exchange with a United Russia member (from 7:20). The businesspeople tell him: there are too many inspections. The United Russia politician replies: but in 1998 there were apartment bombings in Moscow.