RIA Novosti organized discussions of the new book by vice-president of the Center for Current Politics in Russia Vitaly Ivanov entitled “The Custodian.”

Ahead of the Duma and presidential elections, the topicality of the book is extremely high. The author brings up the questions of the history and the modern state of the Russian party system, the relations between the Center and the regions, election campaigns in the past two years. V. Ivanov elucidates the basic political concepts (sovereignty, democracy, nation), analyses the ideological experiences of power representatives, deconstructs the texts written by Russian opposition activists and oversea critics of the Kremlin.

During the discussions it was possible to not only familiarize oneself with the new book but also to consider the modern ideology issues from different angles: how this matter is covered ahead of the elections in Russia? What the state’s ideology has to be like to strengthen the Russia’s status in the global arena? These and other questions were answered by the participants in the discussions – deputy head of the presidential administration, presidential aide Vladislav Surkov, deputy secretary of the United Russia’s general council presidium, chairman of the state duma’s labor and social policy committee Andrei Isayev, deputy head of the UR’s central committee Konstantin Kostin, ideologist for the United Russia’s youth group Molodaya Gvardiya Ivan Demidov, political scientist, president of the Effective Policy Foundation Gleb Pavlovsky, as well as independent experts and journalists.

Vitaly Ivanov said that the book was a collection of his politics-related articles written between 2005 and 2007 and interlaced with a single approach and point of view that the author calls “conservative.” The book, according to Ivanov, was inspired by the events in 2004 in Ukraine and the response from Russian politicians, who saw a threat in the “orange revolution” for Russia. According to Ivanov, this threat was not realistic “but still any threat needs a response.” The Ivanov’s works is the response. His first collection of articles was named Anti-Revolutionist, the Custodian is his second project. According to the author, custodianship is a remedy from “orange revolutions.”