Pipeliners

On a Side

Construction continued on Thursday
of a pipeline that one day will link
the Sakhalin-2 project to a liquefied
natural gas plant in Prigorodny.

Oct 7, 2005 The Moscow Times By Carl Schreck Staff Writer - With little of the hype that characterized the run-up to his 50th birthday, President Vladimir Putin was set to celebrate turning 53 on Friday with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder in St. Petersburg. The visit, a private one, could well be Schroder's final foreign trip as his country's leader.

Schroder to St. Pete for Putin's Birthday

ST. PETERSBURG, October 7 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in St. Petersburg Friday, a Kremlin spokesman said. The German and Russian leaders will discuss the results of the Russia-EU summit that was held in London on Tuesday, and will focus on economic and energy cooperation, particularly the construction of the North European Gas Pipeline. The $10-billion pipeline will pump natural gas from Russia to Germany, passing under the Baltic Sea. Putin and Schroeder will also exchange opinions on how agreements reached at previous meetings are being implemented, the spokesman said. Spokesmen for the Kremlin and the German Embassy in Moscow said Thursday that they did not know what celebratory events were planned, but Friday is the second and final day of a Central Asian Cooperation Organization summit, which has brought leaders from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to the city. German Embassy spokesman Wolfgang Bindseil said that while Schroder's visit was private, the two leaders might address Russian-German relations at a news conference on Friday evening. Putin was the guest of honor at Schroder's 60th birthday in April 2004. Negotiations between Schr?der and opposition leader Angela Merkel, who are competing to lead Germany's next government after elections last month which saw Schroder's government narrowly defeated, appeared set to last through the weekend, The Associated Press reported Thursday. Schroder will return to Germany early Saturday morning, Bindseil said. There has been markedly less pomp ahead of Putin's birthday compared with the political frenzy to congratulate him that marked his 50th birthday three years ago, which Putin spent at a CIS summit in Chisinau, Moldova. In September 2002, the Argumenty i Fakty newspaper asked what the country's biggest political problem was. "Not the 2003 budget, not Chechnya and not the fires in the Moscow region," the newspaper wrote, but "what to give V. Putin for his 50th birthday." Putin is reportedly not a big fan of ostentatious gifts, though he did accept a diamond-encrusted Super Bowl ring from New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft after a meeting in St. Petersburg in June. Kraft later said it was a present, though it was speculated initially that Putin pocketed the ring when Kraft merely meant to show it to him. Bindseil said he did not know what Schr?der planned to give Putin as a present, and a Kremlin spokesman said he could not comment on other gifts Putin was to receive. The press service for Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said he planned to give Putin something nice, "but also useful," Moskovsky Komsomolets reported Thursday. Meanwhile, opposition groups are planning to hold a small protest Friday evening near Pushkin Square to mark Putin's birthday. Members of the Garry Kasparov-led United Civil Front and the youth group My, or We, plan to don Putin masks and prisoners' caps and carry birthday cakes, while giving people a chance to write postcards to Putin, Natalya Alexandrovskaya, head of UCF's Moscow branch, said Thursday. "The prisoners' caps are a symbol of what is increasingly becoming a police state," Alexandrovskaya said. "These days anybody can land up in prison."