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Merkel and Putin become friends over pelmeni and bear meat
They’ve managed it: Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin have become friends. This is what the German Minister of Finance and Technology Michael Glos declared yesterday when welcoming both leaders at the Russian-German business forum in Tomsk. And he added that this can be viewed as a continuation of the traditional friendship uniting Russian and German leaders from the time of Boris Yeltsin and Helmut Kohl.
Putin and Merkel looked like such an inseparable couple yesterday that they seemed to have been clear friends for a long time. They traveled around Tomsk in one car, Putins, and had lunch and dinner together. The day before on Wednesday Putin treated Frau Merkel to Siberian pelmeni for three hours, so they finished their meal well after midnight. They also ate bear meat. Putin publicly admitted this, which could cause certain problems for the Chancellor with the "Greens" at home.
After finishing the official programme of Russian-German consultations, the president and chancellor went "into the people", going for a stroll along the Tom embankment and slightly embarrassing some girls who were also walking there and with whom the VIPs started a spontaneous conversation. Yesterday morning Mrs. Merkel strolled around Tomsk on her own private programme. She visited a Lutheran church which had been set out for her arrival, placed a candle there, took admired the sight of the ice drift on the Tom, which delighted her so much that she even switched into Russian. Then she went to the local Russian-German establishment, where she had some Russian bread and salt which was served up for her, listened to German songs sung by a choir and she patted some children who had come to meet her on the head.
The friendship which has appeared on the national stage was meant to coincide with the relations of strategic partners of which there has been much talk at the business forum. The trade turnover figures achieved between Russia and Germany last year were 33 billion dollars, according to Russian estimates. But the President of the Union of Russian Industrialists Aleksandr Shokhin noted that three quarters of this trade was provided by the export of Russian energy resources.
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