The Media Mirror – Brief review of today's Russian press

Today Russian newspapers write about the State Flag Day, the MAKS air show, Russian-Czech negotiations on the ABM systems, and the “Russian Doctrine” of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Russia is celebrating State Flag Day. Trud newspaper notes that in Russia,  Flag Day was created two years earlier than in the U.S. President Yeltsin signed the draft into law on August 20, 1994.

Unlike America, writes the paper, where the celebration is a week long, in Russia it is only one day. Whoever flies the National Flag off his balcony on a wrong day is subject to punishment. The punishment comes in the form of a fine. So far, reports the Trud article, the city administrations of Kaliningrad and Kazan, businesses in the Belgorod region and two production plants in the Urals have been fined for flying the flag on the wrong date.

To be fair, writes Trud, those who forgot the date, and failed to fly a flag, were fined too.

The MAKS air show in Zhukovsky outside Moscow is drawing all kinds of attention. As always with a widely publicized event, there is the usual parade of headlines. Some – serious: “Here comes the great aerial ball of all times”. Some – pessimistic as “That’s it. I’m done for” – quoting President Putin after having crashed on a flight simulator. The headline in Izvestia daily is really outstanding: “Contracts out of thin air.” That’s a hint at the commercial value of the show, where many deals are expected to be signed. To be correct, though, the air in Moscow these days is not that thin. It’s thick and hot at +38 Celcius.

The Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reports on the Russia–Czech talks on U.S. missile defence plans. The paper says, General Yuri Baluyevsky has managed to persuade First Deputy Defence Minister, Martin Bartak, to postpone the final decision on the deployment of the American missile system.

The same paper also presents “The Russian Doctrine”. The document is an attempt at a national program by the Russian Orthodox Church, says the paper.

It continues by saying that the author of the doctrine, Metropolitan Archbishop Kirill, has drawn a new path for this country. The way suggested by the Church has more to do with economics than with spiritual matters: the document speaks of Russia’s own logic in the financial relations with foreign countries. It also says that oil, gas, weapons and all exports must be in the hands of the state.

Vremya Novostei quotes the Federal Statistics Agency as saying: life is becoming better in Russia. Otherwise, says the paper, how to explain the fact that the birth rate is at last on the rise, and the death rate – in decline.