The State Duma (Russian parliament) is world wide notorious for fights between members of the parliament and also for the way plenary meetings of the State Duma are held. It is almost a rule that only 20-40%% of the total membership present during voting even if a very important bill is being considered. If this issue is interesting, you can find an episode on the BBC web site about voting on the bill about alcohol limits in blood during driving (It had name like “Voting: Russian style!” or it was just a journalist’s exclamation – I don’t remember right now).  This episode was broadcasted last spring.

But now our legislative authorities have decided to end this practice (maybe it is because Dmitry Medvedev mentioned in his speech the bad participation of the members of the parliament in voting). Because of this and for a control there will be installed a special registration system which will recognize parliament members’ faces via eight video cameras installed near the four main entrances/exits into the State Duma’s building.

Let’s see how it would work…

D.Medvedev’s amount of income was 4.139.726 rubles (about 120.000 US dollars) and V.Putin’s amount of income was about 4.700.000 rubles (about 135.000 US dollars). But D.Medvedev owned more expensive property than V.Putin.

For the most of members of Rissian business community and for the most of highly qualified specialists in Russia such incomes as have the President and the Chairman are not enough high. And one of journalists on radio said that these tax returns showed that to be poor is very popular in Russian politics.

Source: rian.ru