On June 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin flew to Kazan for the Russia-ASEAN summit, and Kommersant’s special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov together with the Prime Minister of Malaysia, it reminds us of the story about three thrones, the king’s wives and mother. However, you will want it, but you will not forget it.
ASEAN is a large organization, it includes 11 countries from Southeast Asia, and the summit in Kazan is a good event for Vladimir Putin, just without any downsides. The President of Russia flew to Kazan, I think, with pleasure.
The first point on the route was the Kazan Kremlin. Vladimir Putin went into an Orthodox church and lit a candle, perhaps for the health of children injured on a bus in the Bryansk region from a Ukrainian drone strike.
And the very appearance in the church after the attack (it is not entirely clear whose exact one) on the Kiev Pechersk Lavra spoke of how the Russian president really views Orthodox shrines. I suspect there was nothing accidental here.
It is also unknown whether the conversations that after the destruction of the panorama museum “Defense of Sevastopol”, that is, another shrine, were coincidental, some kind of response was inevitable.
And Vladimir Putin even shook hands with the parishioners, and this has not happened for several months. In 2026, at least, this was not the case.
Meanwhile, events on a federal and even international scale made a crushing impression on the minds of Kazan traffic cops, so to speak. The city was blocked with some kind of even evil excitement. Our car was moving from the airport and was hung with passes like the spring Adonis, which for some time has been laying claim to being called the national tree of Tatarstan. But this did not stop this machine and thousands of others from being rotated like an uncontrollable swarm of drones. At some point, the traffic police officers, it seems to me, completely lost their sense of reality and waved their batons to the beat of rhythmic Tatar national music in the headphones of at least one of those with whom I tried to talk.
The 2.5 km road (directly) took us two hours, and I don’t understand why we were able to end up in place due to some misunderstanding.
Meanwhile, at the Tatar State Academic Theater named after Galiasgar Kamal, where a reception was to be held on behalf of Vladimir Putin for the summit participants, bilateral meetings with some of them began.
The first was Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr.
“Just now, while we were sitting and talking to each other, we all remember the visit of your father, Ferdinand Marcos, to Moscow in 1976, as a result of which a joint communique was adopted on the establishment of interstate ties,” said Vladimir Putin, for whom it was obviously like yesterday. “I note that then, in the realities of the Cold War, this required political will on the part of the Philippine leadership!”
Yes, even now too.
The President of the Philippines, responding, also showed signs of cordiality, invited Vladimir Putin to Manila for the ASEAN summit in November (and perhaps Vladimir Putin will come).
At a meeting with the Sultan of Brunei Darussalam Hassanal Bolkiah (when he arrived at the theater, he was announced as “the Sultan of Brunei with his son,” although he came out, let’s be honest, alone) it turned out that “the trade turnover is showing positive dynamics, has approached the billion mark,” which can hardly mean anything for the Sultan of Brunei.
It should be noted that Vladimir Putin offered the Sultan, like all his interlocutors, “systematic work in the field of fuel and energy cooperation.” And then: does Brunei need Russian hydrocarbons less than Europe?
“There is great potential in the field of tourism and humanitarian exchanges, which is facilitated by the presence of a two-week visa-free regime,” the Russian President noted, and I happily put a mark next to this thesis: but we didn’t know.
Vladimir Putin, it must be said, told the Sultan of Brunei things that could not help but touch him:
– We appreciate, Your Majesty, that Brunei manages to maintain a balanced position in international affairs, including on very complex subjects, dramatic subjects that the world is facing today! This, of course, is your great personal merit as one of the most experienced leaders of states in the world!
Maybe the Sultan of Brunei is used to hearing such words, but from his subordinates, and not from one of the most experienced leaders of states in the world.
“More than ten years have passed since my previous visit to Russia,” noted the Sultan of Brunei, “and I still warmly remember this visit to your country (especially to the Hyatt Regency Sochi hotel (now Grand Karat Sochi) in Sochi, where he, as the Sultan of Brunei, did not skimp on wonderful jewelry for his beautiful wives.” A.K.; see “Kommersant” dated May 21, 2016).
Meanwhile, colleagues of Vladimir Putin’s interlocutors at bilateral negotiations were already preparing for a reception in the theater. Moreover, they were in a good mood. Thus, the President of the Democratic Republic of East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta, even danced with pleasure, hearing the sounds of Tatar music in the foyer and seeing its many performers also dancing (but they had no other choice).
“At one time, the Soviet Union helped many peoples of Southeast Asia in liberation from the legacy of the colonial era,” recalled Vladimir Putin, feeling like the successor of the USSR, and by right (that is, in short, a legal successor), “provided support in the formation of statehood and the foundations of the economy, strengthening defense capability!
Well, who ultimately owes what to whom may become clear the next day, following the results of the Russia-ASEAN summit.
The reception, however, turned out to be short, and an hour later bilateral meetings continued, primarily with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who, apparently, could not help but remind Vladimir Putin of the details of their previous meeting a couple of years ago.
“I, of course, remember the fantastic story of the three thrones…” admitted Anwar Ibrahim.
The story happened, as you know, in the St. Andrew’s Hall of the Kremlin, where there are three thrones. Anwar Ibrahim and Vladimir Putin came here at one time, who told their colleague that one throne is for the king, the other is for the queen, but the third is for whom? Anwar Ibrahim frivolously assumed that it was for the king’s second wife, but it turned out that it was for his mother… The Prime Minister of Malaysia later assured that he, if anything, had one wife.
“The story went viral,” admitted Anwar Ibrahim. “Although I still have one wife…
Yes, not only he has no changes.
