Russia’s Likely Next President Meets With DEEP PURPLE
February 11, 2008, 16 years ago
The following report is courtesy of Thewest.com.au:
The man expected to become Russia’s next president smiled happily as he posed for a picture with DEEP PURPLE in the Kremlin today and recalled the times when he first listened to the English rock band.
Dmitry Medvedev, a first deputy prime minister who seems certain to win the March 2 presidential vote, was shown by NTV television posing with Deep Purple in the Kremlin where they performed at a concert marking the 15th anniversary of Gazprom state natural gas monopoly.
Medvedev also serves as Gazprom chairman.
“I couldn’t imagine that,” Medvedev said in televised remarks.
“I was 13 or 14 when I first listened to Deep Purple, and such music was forbidden then,” he said referring to Soviet-era ideological taboos which prevented the sales of albums of Western hard rock stars.
Deep Purple, formed in 1968 in Britain, were one of the pioneers of hard rock.
The band, which has gone through numerous lineup changes, has sold over 100 million albums worldwide.
Medvedev, whose image of a somewhat bookish lawyer is belied by his music taste, once boasted of owning the complete collection of Deep Purple in original vinyl records.
“It would be completely surreal to imagine that I would meet this legendary band in the Kremlin, but it happened,” Medvedev said with a broad smile.
Medvedev has been anointed by President Vladimir Putin as his preferred successor, and his victory in the election is seen as all but a foregone conclusion thanks to Putin’s broad popularity and the Kremlin’s control over media and political landscape.
