MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev).--The Valdai Discussion Club completed its work by the meeting with President Putin. This is the second session of the Valdai Club in Russia. The first one was held a year ago.
The Club unites former Sovietologists, that is, leading American and European experts on post-Soviet territory, as well as Russian politicians and analysts.
Before meeting the President last Monday a group of fifty foreign experts had been through a real marathon: in the first half of the day they listened to the speeches of Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Vladislav Surkov, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov, Minister of Communications Yevgeny Reiman, Minister of Oil and Natural Resources Yury Trutnev, and finally three deputy ministers from the government's "economic" bloc. The experts who had been used to patiently screen bits of information from the former U.S.S.R. and later on from Russia, were literally showered with exclusive and often classified information.
The participants in the second session were very prominent figures, too. It was attended by Marshall Goldman (US), a seasoned expert on Soviet studies, Germany's best known expert on Russia Alexander Rahr, leading foreign policy expert from France Thierry de Montbrial, and Lord Howell, a shadow minister in the British Parliament, to name but a few. In other words, these were the best of the best.
The Valdai Discussion Club is a joint project of the state-owned RIA Novosti News and Information Agency and non-governmental Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.
At the very first sessions held aboard a motor ship on its way from the Moskva River to the Volga, experts on Russia could see for themselves that the parliamentary and presidential election race of 2007-2008 had already started. "Who funds this meeting of the opposition?" joked one of those present after a well-orchestrated attack on the Kremlin by the most prominent opposition leaders Vladimir Ryzhkov and Irina Khakamada. They were obviously gaining the upper hand over their Russian colleagues, political scientists Sergey Markov and Vyacheslav Nikonov, if not by arguments, but definitely by energy when they discussed chances of a "color revolution" in Russia and other subjects.
Incidentally, for all their traditional and obvious personal empathy for the Russian Liberals, foreign experts displayed a strictly scientific approach to the subject discussed. This was manifest at the economic session when Muscovites Vladimir Mau and Mikhail Delyagin unanimously cursed the impact of booming oil prices on the Russian economy. Oil is not a curse but an excellent springboard for upgrading other industries and implementing the necessary economic reforms in Russia, reminded Georges Sokoloff from France and Clifford Gaddy from the U.S. Whether this process is successful or not is another matter.
The theme of China as a new powerful factor of world diplomacy featured prominently at the session on Russian foreign policy on post-Soviet territory. The growing influence of the future world leader gave a new tinge to the traditional dispute on Russia's entry or non-entry into the EU, or its role in other CIS countries. It should be admitted that China, that had obviously become a winner in Moscow's new energy policy, consolidated the Russian positions considerably just at this single expert session.
The ancient Russian city of Tver and its Governor Dmitry Zelenin, formerly a successful businessman, continued a pleasant tradition by welcoming the members of the Club and showing them around the region.
