Potyomkin Press Conference

THE SLICK WHITE folder was festooned with the red, white and blue of the Russian flag and banded with the words, “Press Conference of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.” Inside, a nice pen bore a similar insignia, as did a four-gigabyte flash drive.

“This is it,” I thought.

It was an unprecedented event for Medvedev, who invited over 800 journalists to “the” press-conference of his presidency. That it was being held less than one year before Russia’s 2012 presidential election had set reporters abuzz. Correspondents from top global media outlets down to municipal papers from Yakutia all pondered as one: What could he possibly have to say? Is Russia on the brink of major reforms? Will he dissolve the cabinet? Will he announce his presidential bid and confront his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin?

A convoy of buses filled with speculating journalists sped through central Moscow under police escort, heading to the capital’s outskirts. The destination: Skolkovo Business School.

“Something will happen today,” I texted a friend as all the stoplights magically turned green and we glided toward the landmark event.

You have to give Medvedev credit, we all thought: he was holding a press-conference with no preset rules or planted questions. But then Sergei Brilev of Vesti TV channel was the first to stand up. He asked, “I want to ask you about inevitability — the inevitability of modernization?” The sense of anticipation evaporated. There would be no real questions. No real answers.

It was like realizing, after watching the first few seconds of a movie, that you had been suckered into a lame sequel.

With the playful servility typical of Russian journalists, most quickly fashioned makeshift signs with hearts, smiley faces, puckered lips, and other attention-grabbing imagery, waving them high in an attempt to get the president to call on them. Female reporters smiled and waved as Medvedev wiggled his eyebrows in response. A Chechen reporter from a Grozny newspaper called Democracy asked about Medvedev’s final memory of Chechnya’s late leader, Akhmad Kadyrov. A young woman from Russia Today TV, in a sleeveless, tight white dress, wondered in rhetorical self-promotion if Russia’s image had improved internationally since Medvedev had become president.

The high point of the conference was when Medvedev, flicking his finger across his iPad, addressed questions that had been sent to him in advance via the internet. The Word of Tundra began its question with a bit of background: “The deer is the only animal whose body is used more than 100 percent.” As the audience openly snickered, the Russian president calmly noted that the deer issue is no laughing matter.

“What was the point?” reporters asked each other over the next several days. Why bring in people from all over Russia if there is nothing to say?

In Russia’s political jungle book, is an act of political suicide not what it seems, but part of a master plot?