EURASIAN LEADERS RELAXED IN SOCHI

Kommersant, Russia
Aug. 16, 2006

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the presidents of Armenia
and Kazakhstan at his residence in Sochi yesterday as part of the
informal summit of Eurasian Economic Community leaders, which began
on Monday. Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, who recently received
news of the steep price increase Russia is imposing on natural gas
to his country, missed the horse races in Moscow two weeks ago due
to an illness.

In the public part of the meeting, Putin had a slip of the tongue,
telling Kocharyan that "we are very glad that the year of Azerbaijan is
going on in Russia." The Russian president looked genuinely shocked
by his error. The rest of the public part of their meeting, which
lasted about 20 minutes, was devoted to trade turnover between the
two countries.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev spoke about his participation
in the G8 summit in St. Petersburg and the agreement with Russia on
freight transit between the two countries and concluded by telling
Putin "I am very grateful to you for the possibility of visiting
this lovely place at this lovely time. And I very much hope that this
meeting will be productive for all of the states of the CIS… that
is EvrAzES [the Russian acronym of the Eurasian Economic Community]."

The two presidents derived a good deal of amusement from their slips
of the tongue of the day.

The Russian president spoke briefly with Belarusian President Alexander
Lukashenko and Uzbek President Islam Karimov before dinner.

The menu consisted of lobster salad, baked fig with homemade cheese,
monkfish with pineapple sauce, marbled beef with cabernet sauvignon
sauce, mousse with fruit sorbet and Mouton-Cadet Baron Philippe de
Rothschild 2004 and Blayac Medoc 2003. The six presidents present
walked on the beach together after dinner, where they met Russian
Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov walking with Ukrainian Prime Minister
Viktor Yanukovich.