It has taken me a while to react on the disappointing state of the nation address of President Medvedev, and the reason is that for a long time I hadn't quite gotten the idea behind it. As we all remember, the whole story about the speech started out quite promisingly. There were plenty of opportunities for Medvedev to make a giant leap towards his second term. First, there were speculations about a planned reorganisation of Russia's federal subjects that would have created the geographical prerequisite for modernisation. Then, there was this carefully built up notion about a gradual political modernisation of Russia. It started in Yaroslavl then continued with the "projections" of Vladislav Surkov about the backlash of United Russia, which was echoed - albeit in a more cautious manner - by Medvedev himself (and seemingly embraced by the party as well). Then, by a sudden turn of events, the President deems it more important to speak about children's rights (besides the usual mantra). Maybe he simply had too much to talk about?
