Vladimir Putin’s annual phone-ins with the nation tend to follow a well-trodden path: some economic statistics to start with, a couple of “tough” questions batted away, a jokey segment (this year “Do you like porridge?” was perhaps the highlight) and then promises to defend the wronged masses against nefarious local officials and businessmen who have swindled them of their rightful rewards.
But the set-piece events still serve an important function, especially in these times of increasing economic strain. The most significant element of the show is always Putin as problem-shooter; the Tsar dispensing on-the-spot justice to those of his wronged subjects lucky enough to be given an audience. Getting through to the president is like winning the lottery – both because of the unfavourable odds of succeeding and because of the instant rewards it can bring.
After a mere 52 minutes of the phone-in, there was an announcement that authorities in the Siberian city of Omsk had promised to fix 21 roads by 1 May, in response to the very first question complaining about their appalling condition. As Putin continued speaking, authorities in Sakhalin region announced they were opening a criminal case against the owner of a fish factory, whose employees had an hour earlier complained to Putin that they had not been paid for months.
There are hundreds or thousands of similar cases which never make it to Putin, of course. The programme hosts said by the end of the programme, there had been more than 3m attempts to get through to the Russian president, not to mention tens of thousands of video questions and social media messages. Even if some of the same people made many attempts, the figure is extraordinarily high for a country of 143 million people. For many Russians, getting through to Putin is their one shot at justice.
Working as a journalist across Russia, people often share their problems with me but ask for them not to be published due to a fear of punishment from their superiors: workers fear the factory bosses, the factory bosses fear the mayor, the mayor fears the regional governor, and so on.
The phone-in offers the rare chance to leapfrog all the rungs on this vertical ladder of power on which Russian society operates. Getting through to Putin suddenly inverts the power relationship and puts ordinary workers in a position of dominance over regional officials, who for one day of the year wake up desperately hoping their region is not featured in the phone in.
“Tell me again where all of this is happening,” Putin asked of yet another caller with a tale of regional woe. “I promise you that I’ll make sure the law-enforcement bodies will work intensively on this.”
As Putin diligently noted down the name of the village and region on a sheet of paper in front of him, somewhere across Russia’s vast landmass, a regional official will have felt his previously secure world come collapsing down around him. Elsewhere, as the phone-in came to an end, many others will have breathed a sigh of relief for another year.
