vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #589 / Arts and Ideas / Reading article...

An exhibition ‘Putin - A Portrait of President’ opened Wednesday on Sakhalin to mark the 55th birthday anniversary of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile Vladivostok gets ready to release a play called Putin’s Holiday devoted to serve the same goal.

“President Vladimir Putin pays much attention to Russia’s regions because he knows that the country can be united and strengthened by them,” Sakhalin Vice Governor Oleg Namakonov said at the opening of the exhibition staged in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk public library.

“Many of the exhibition’s photographs are directly linked with our region which means that Putin knows about problems and wishes of people residing in Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands,” Namakonov assured the audience.

The exhibition which aims to boost Putin’s popularity among local residents opened three days after the president had celebrated his 55th anniversary.

Meanwhile another present to Putin’s birthday party failed to come along on time. The play Putin’s Holiday, telling a fantastic story about the president finding himself in a distant Siberian village after an air crash, will allegedly see rehearsals only in the end of October.

According to playwright Igor Kositsyn, Primorsky Youth Theater was chosen to stage the play about the president, his biographer and several residents of the remote village. “This play is a comedy by its genre,” said Kositsyn, according to the interview published by RIA Novosti news agency.

Kositsyn revealed that in his play about Putin he had used reports written by Andrei Kolesnikov, a reporter for Kommersant newspaper.

According to RIA Novosti, Kositsyn notified Kolesnikov about his intention to use pieces of newspaper articles in the play. “The play did not arouse in me protest feelings but it did not stir ecstasy either,” Kolesnikov noted. “From my point of view it is not critical toward Putin, it is actually complimentary, but like any piece of art this play has its right to see the stage,” Kolesnikov said, the news agency reported.