BBC - Around the World - Ariel's 'Foreign Bureau' - 8 June 2004

By Ivan Podakin, broadcast assistant, Moscow, 8 June 2004

Want to get a comment from a Russian state official? On air, live, tonight? Yes, well, it’s not always as easy as you might like.

Despite a decade or so of democratic reform, Russian bureaucrats have many more decades’ experience of working rather differently.

Send them a fax and wait until it is ‘considered’ – up to a month in some cases. Keep calling. And when you bug the press secretary for the hundredth time, you’ll finally hear: "You know, the timing’s bad, let’s do it another time."

But it’s three weeks since the bid was filed, you complain.

Some officials go one better. The Russian Foreign Ministry has a spokesman and for years his secretaries and deputies refused to admit he spoke English. Then a correspondent finally discovered that he did after all.

Still, he rarely makes a comment to foreign cameras. And very rarely will he go live, even for Russian broadcasters. His deputies direct us to his statements posted on the Ministry website.

Spokesmen are a rare breed. Even the President of Russia has no spokesman at all. Nor has the Russian government. Whenever a big story breaks, London calls asking for ‘a government spokesman’.

And it’s so embarrassing to have to explain the inexplicable: "I’m sorry, but the Russian government doesn’t have a spokesperson…"

At present, the bureau is chasing a top Russian politician. We’ve been at him for some five months to no avail... And the man’s aide won’t even discuss it over a business lunch.

We have put in interview bids for the president, the foreign minister, the prime minister and the ex-prime minister... None have given so much as a tempting hint for months.

A prominent Russian MP, a pro-Western reformist liberal and one-time favourite of BBC programmes, once made an unfavourable comment on US foreign policy during a Russian parliament session.

It ran on the main Russian tv channels all day.

When we asked whether he’d be prepared to repeat his statements in English, his press secretary said: "Mr X’s relationships with his American partners are very good right now. We don’t think it sensible to make his comments public at this time."

Finally, the conflict in Chechnya is the litmus test of information policy in Russia. Supposing you need confirmation of the latest casualties suffered by the Russian troops there. Rapidly you discover that at least three different authorities are responsible for media contacts.

When asked to confirm the casualties in an ambush, a press officer will say openly: "Yes, I do have the exact number, but we wouldn’t like to voice it, as you may understand."

Surprisingly, with its reputation, it is sometimes easier to get information from the former KGB than from the Health Ministry.

I had a friend, an American expat, who also worked at a foreign news bureau in Moscow. He once joked: "A Russian official will never help you unless he can help it." That was ten years ago and it still seems to be true today.

Only it’s not so funny when you only have five minutes before your correspondent goes to air…