On December 16, 2010, at 12:00 noon Moscow time, live on the Rossiya and Rossiya 24 TV channels, and on the Mayak, Vesti FM, and Radio Rossii radio stations, Vladimir Putin will be answering questions from dear “Russians”. Obviously, the questions from those dear “Russians” are written by Putin’s press office. Even so, questions are formally being collected by phone, text message, and online. Which gives us the opportunity, by spending one minute of our free time, to give both the press office and Putin himself many unpleasant minutes. I suggest we ask a question. We’ve seen plenty of funny flash mobs on this subject before. Everyone remembers: when will giant humanoid combat robots enter military service? Of course, all that is very cute, but questions like that—and wasting energy on flash mobs built around them—are just a gift to the Kremlin PR people. No danger at all, just cheerful snickering. So I suggest refraining from “funny” (who did you enjoy kissing more, the tiger or the salmon?) or ambiguous (they say you’re a great admirer of rhythmic gymnastics, is that true?) questions.
Let’s ask about Transneft and the billions stolen from it. Go here Enter your name, address, social status, and gender. Go to the next page Select "Security and Law Enforcement" Copy and paste this text (or come up with your own version with the same meaning) A few weeks ago, documents from the company Transneft were published online; the company had provided them in response to a request from the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation (Russia’s state audit body). The authenticity of the documents is beyond doubt and has not been disputed either by Transneft or by the Accounts Chamber. The documents contain audit reports recording the theft of billions of rubles during the implementation of the East Siberia–Pacific Ocean pipeline project. No investigation of these crimes—committed by Transneft employees and the government officials connected to them—has been conducted to date, nor is one being conducted now. For unclear reasons, the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation classified all data on the results of its Transneft audit. You personally, after the Accounts Chamber’s audit procedures—whose results you could not have been unaware of—made the decision to appoint Transneft head S. Vainshtok, who is evidently implicated in the thefts at the company, as head of Olympstroy State Corporation. Will there be an open and public investigation into the thefts committed, and still being committed, in the implementation of the ESPO project? Who bears responsibility for blocking the investigation of these thefts and concealing information about them? Click "submit." If you write your own version, refrain from things like, "Vovashka, where did you hide your cut of the kickbacks?" He still won’t say where he hid it, and he’ll get the chance to say, "I don’t answer rude questions." I deliberately phrased everything very mildly. Nice and polite. Why does this make sense? Practice shows that through my little LiveJournal blog alone, it’s possible to organize 1,000–2,000 questions. Accordingly, this will automatically become the "most asked" question. Or one of them. Which means it should show up here. The especially persistent can also call or send a text. The phone number from anywhere in Russia, for landlines and mobile phones, is 8-800-200-40-40. Calls from landlines and mobile phones are free. The free SMS number is 04040. And then we can relax and wait while the Kremlin crooks look for a solution to the problem. The tales about them receiving a hundred thousand trillion questions remain just that—tales. Sure, they get plenty of questions, but if we send in two thousand identical ones, then we’ll know for sure: "Putin knows." Not to mention that all the servants, lackeys, and henchmen responsible for "communicating with the dear ‘Russians’" will read this post and all the comments. They’ll print it out on paper and, clicking their forked tongues, run off to show it to "the right people." We’ll see. Either V. V. Putin will chicken out and not answer. As in: we didn’t see anything, and anyway this isn’t a popular question. Or he’ll say something about "dirty tricks by our competitors, who don’t want Russia to enter Pacific markets, blah blah." Or: "presumption of innocence... rule-of-law state... blah blah, let’s not throw around accusations." Or something else. Any reaction will be interesting and informative. Either way, the action will make the crooks a little more nervous. Which is good in itself.