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7 Nov, 2007 04:16

The Media Mirror – Today's Russian press review

The latest protests in Georgia are making headlines in the Russian press. Newspapers are also featuring articles about the October Revolution of 1917, trying to answer the question: was it a tragedy or the logical course of events?

NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA daily writes the chances of Irakli Okruashvili replacing Mikhail Saakashvili as Georgia’s President are very slim. An opposition figure told the paper “We can live without that man. From the political point of view, Okruashvili doesn’t have anything to do with the current events in Georgia”.

Another daily newspaper, VREMYA NOVOSTEI, writes that at first Washington supported the protests in Tbilisi as a normal democratic event. Now the U.S. is calling it an event with no sense. The West will hardly abandon Saakashvili says the paper. His “revolution of the roses” is one of the brightest feathers in the cap of George Bush,  one not to be lost months before the election.

The paper quotes an MP from the Georgian Republican Party, Ivlian Haindrava,, who is just back from the U.S. “if the opposition comes to power in Georgia, it may be even more pro-Western then Saakashvili, with NATO membership firmly in mind.” he says.

KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA daily quotes post-Soviet nations expert Konstantin Zatulin. He says it doesn’t make much difference whether it’s Saakashvili or Okruashvili – they are both bad for Russia. 

Vitaly Tretyakov writes in his MOSKOVSKIE NOVOSTI on-line column that all Georgian presidents have promised to steer the nation away from the power of an aggressive Russia and create conditions for altruistic aid from the noble United States to grow and grow. Now they are away from Russia’s power and the aid has been growing as planned. But somehow happiness still escapes Georgia.

IZVESTIA daily publishes the results of its own internet public opinion poll. The question was what does November 7 mean to you? 11% answered it was a usual working day; 34% said it was the day of the Great October Socialist Revolution; 35% that it was another anniversary of a great tragedy for Russia and the world; and 20% said that history will judge how we shall see that day.

NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA newspaper says the revolution that launched Stalin’s Soviet Union into being has acquired some appeal among the young generation of Russians. This is because they say that in those times our country was respected and feared . For its part, the paper retorts that today's Russia is also respected and sometimes feared. So who needs revolutions for that?

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