In 20’s of August Vladimir Putin finished his work over the list of those who he has to delegate to the Public Chamber, according to the law. The Public Chamber is a body formed from the citizens “that have rendered great services to the state and society”. The list was promised to publish soon. But either there are too many deserved citizens or the President is busy, but the decree is not published. “Rodnaya gazeta” has one of the variants of the “list of 42”. As well-informed sources assume, it is the very last variant.

1. Sergey Abakumov, chairman of the board of the National civil committee on interaction with law enforcement, legislative, and judicial bodies and the National fund “Public recognition”.
2. Anton Antonov-Ovseenko, historian, publicist, writer.
3. Leo Bokeria, director of the A.N.Bakulev Center of cardiovascular surgery.
4. Lidia Blokhina, president of the Confederation of businesswomen of Russia.
5. Alexander Buynov, singer.
6. Mikhail Vashukov, deserved artist of the Russian Federation.
7. Stanislav Govorukhin, film director.
8. Vladimir Govorov, chairman of the Russian committee of veterans of war and military service.
9. Viktor Gorbatko, space-pilot.
10. Yulia Gorodnicheva, student of the Tula state university.
11. Galina Gorokhova, president of the Russian union of sportsmen.
12. Georgy Grechko, space-pilot.
13. Elena Zelinskaya, vice-president of “Media-union”.
14. Il’ya Il’in, chairman of student union of the Moscow state university.
15. Alina Kabaeva, Olympic champion in rhythmic-sportive gymnastics.
16. Alexander Kalyaghin, chairman of the Union of theatre workers of Russia.
17. Evgeny Klyachin, president of the federal notarial chamber.
18. Andrey Kovalchuk, the first secretary of the Union of painters of Russia.
19. Kirill Lavrov, actor.
20. Alexander Lomakin-Rumyantsev, chairman of the All-Russia society of invalids.
21. Galina Malanicheva, chairman of central council of the All-Russian society on protection of historical and cultural monuments.
22. Sergey Markov, political scientist.
23. Armen Medvedev, president of Rolan Bykov’s Fund.
24. Roy Medvedev, writer-historian.
25. Gasan Mirzoev, president of the Guild of Russian advocates.
26. Evgeny Mironov, artist.
27. Nikita Mikhalkov, president of the Russian fund of culture.
28. Boris Panov, chairman of central board of the Union of pensioners of Russia.
29. Irina Rodnina, chairman of central council of “Sportive Russia”.
30. Oleg Rozhnov, chairman of the Russian union of youth.
31. Leonid Roshal, director of the Moscow research institute of urgent children’s surgery and traumatic surgery.
32. Andrey Sakharov, director of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Science.
33. Oleg Tabakov, art director of MHT.
34. Boris Tokarev, actor, producer.
35. Valery Fadeev, editor-in-chief of the magazine “Expert”.
36.  Vladimir Fortov, academician of the Russian Academy of Science, vice-president of the Russian Academy of Science.
37. Irina Khaleeva, rector of the Moscow state linguistic university.
38. Alisa Freindlikh, actress.
39. Elena Chaykovskaya, trainer of the Russian Olympic Committee on figure skating.
40. Vladimir Shainsky, composer.
41. Alexander Shokhin, chairman of the Coordinative council of business unions.
42. Valentine Yudashkin, dress designer.   

 COMMENTS

 Konstantin Simonov, director of the Center of the Current Politics:

 – The President proposed a year ago to form the Public Chamber as a place for discussion of civil initiatives and control over activity of the government. And at that time I supported this decision. But the very fact of formation of the Chamber settles a little. The main thing is whether civil society can use it as means of control over the authority, as means of dialogue between the authority and society. It is an exam for it. I am not sure the Chamber will pass it. It is much simpler for it to give public weight to decisions of the Government and the State Duma, to spend a part of its symbolic capital for support of the President. This body will hardly be capable to filtrate political decisions. It is difficult for artists, sportsmen, and historians to do it, if only the balance of power does not shift due to its other 84 member from non-governmental organizations and regions, elected later. I do not think that the first meeting will be held before the end of this year – the beginning of the next year. It is necessary to solve a number of technical issues: where to sit, what apparatus to be served, for what money to function.

 Source: “Rodnaya gazeta”. September 02-08.09. 2005.