It is rare that the press and officials of the Russian presidential administration at such high-level events as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) “stay” in the same hotel.
In more than 30 years of hard work in the Kremlin press group, I do not remember this at all.
But this time, the security service, protocol and press service were stationed at the Ritz-Carlton hotel on Dostyk Street, in the centre of the Kazakh capital.
And our press center was literally five steps away from the meeting rooms where Vladimir Putin worked.
And, in fact, we could freely observe how the “negotiation transmitter” works.
While the president is meeting with his Mongolian counterpart, the room for negotiations with the Turkish leader is already being prepared: state flags are being set up, microphones are being checked, simultaneous translation equipment is being tested… Putin, having finished the conversation, moves on to the next room, and the one he has just been working in is preparing for the next negotiations. And so on, until the evening.
This “closeness of the press to power” was felt even in the buffet menu at our press center.
Never in my life have I tasted such delicious coffee and such extravagant fruit salads (watermelon+melon+kiwi)! Was it really possible that this time we and our government would eat in the same kitchen?
However, the main thing is the speakers who were available (remotely): from the official representative of the Kremlin, Peskov, to Deputy Prime Minister Novak.
Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov and KP journalist Alexander Gamov.
Photo: Vladimir VELENGURIN. Go to Photobank KP
Of course, there was no slacking off (the president was nearby, and he had a busy schedule of bilateral negotiations with his colleagues). But we still managed to record a video and, as you have already seen, prepare an informal text about the behind-the-scenes of the summit: how Kremlin journalists work here…
