The ceremony has been led in its historical home, Taurian Palace in St. Petersburg. Russian President Vladimir Putin joined them for dinner, where he was seated with St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko (wearing a red scarf), speaker of the city's legislative assembly Vadim Tyulpanov, speaker of the Duma Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the Federation Council Sergey Mironov and Governor of Leningrad Region Valery Serdyukov. Members of the St. Petersburg legislative assembly who attempted to approach the table to greet the guests were shooed away by the president guards.

The president began the meal with a ten-minute speech in which he recalled the sad lessons to be learned from the events of 1917 and promised to preserve parliamentarianism in Russia and settle disputes with neighboring states. That was heartening to speaker of the Georgian parliament Nino Burjanadze, who was also a guest at the event. Then the president made a toast “to democracy and progress.” Among the delicacies on the tables were duck liver terrine with ginger, black caviar with blini, scallops, crab from Kamchatka, home-smoked salmon, marinated trout, smoked sturgeon, salad with lobster, poularde and red caviar (made from a 1904 recipe), mushrooms with sour cream, sterlet, millefois and vodka and cranberry sorbet. Georgian wine was notably missing from the menu. Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Rene van der Linden noted that he would have enjoyed some Georgian wine along with the French.

The Russian president stayed at the event almost until midnight. The remaining guests began to disperse soon after his departure.

News source: www.kommersant.com
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