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- On the essence of cases: over 1.6 million questions received on a direct line with Putin
On the essence of cases: over 1.6 million questions received on a direct line with Putin
More than 1.6 million appeals from Russians have already received a direct line to Vladimir Putin, which will be held on December 19. Mikhail Kuznetsov, head of the People's Front executive committee, told Izvestia. This year especially many questions concern housing and utilities, drug provision, transportation accessibility, water and air quality, scholarships and the availability of dormitories, as well as the size of pensions and benefits. Questions will be accepted until the end of the direct line, and for the first time in history - with the help of artificial intelligence. How you can address the President and how convenient new technologies in the collection of letters - in the material "Izvestia".
How to send a question to the direct line
The annual direct line of the President of Russia, combined with a press conference, will be held on December 19. The event called "The results of the year with Vladimir Putin" will again, as last year, will be held in a combined format: part of the questions will be asked by journalists from the hall, and part - the citizens of the country. It will be possible to hear the answers of the head of state from 12 o'clock. Vladimir Putin, as usual, is thoroughly preparing for communication with the people and representatives of the press. The head of state for a couple of days even refrained from holding major public events to fully concentrate on the messages coming from residents.
Russians can still ask their questions to the head of state by phone, by SMS or via social networks - they will be accepting messages until the end of the program on December 19. Everyone can ask a question via the program websitemoskva-putinu .ru(moskva-putinu.rf), SMS or MMS messages to the number 0-40-40-40 and by phone 8-800-200-40-40.
A call-center was organized to collect appeals from citizens, which began its work on the night of December 8. Thus, as of 14:00 Moscow time on December 18, the direct line received 1,608,940 questions, the People's Front told Izvestia. According to their data, 54% of appeals - in the form of calls, 20% - by SMS, 13% - through social networks, 6% - through the website, 4% - by MMS and 3% - through the application. It is noteworthy that the largest number of appeals comes from the Central, North-Western and Southern Federal Districts. The most popular topics of appeals this year were housing issues, medical care, transportation accessibility and road conditions, said the head of the executive committee of the "People's Front" Mikhail Kuznetsov.
- Among the questions there are topics that can be called traditional for the direct line, such as health care, road quality, social benefits and payments, housing and housing and utilities. This year, the direct line received many questions related to drug provision and rehabilitation means, water and air quality, the size of scholarships and availability of dormitories, support for children's sports, salaries of employees of public institutions, pensions and benefits, bureaucratic burden of teachers," he told Izvestia.
Citizens under 18 ask the most questions about education and science, from 18 to 35 - about housing, from 35 to 50 - about health care, and 50+ - about social support. The People's Front obtained all this data with the help of GigaChat ("GigaChat"), a neural network model from Sber. This is the first use of artificial intelligence in processing citizens' questions in the history of the direct line.
- We are pleased that Sber's neural network model GigaChat will help transcribe audio messages into text, analyze them and quickly solve them," said Mikhail Kuznetsov.
The innovation has already been appreciated by Vladimir Putin. Earlier at the exhibition within the framework of the conference "Journey into the World of Artificial Intelligence" he evaluated the results of GigaChat AI processing of questions received on the direct line. The head of state was told that the neural network allows processing requests in seconds, while previously these processes took months, and even after the broadcast.
- This is very important, and it really does not only facilitate my work. Most importantly, such data processing capabilities will, of course, help to reach a great many people and respond to people's requests. According to the top-5 of these topics, it is already clear where the state should focus its attention," the President said earlier.
Preparing for the annual press conference
As a rule, this event is characterized not only by a wide range of questions from representatives of different publications, but also by bright images, signs and costumes to stand out in the crowd of colleagues. From year to year, journalists abound in their imagination in an attempt to draw the president's attention, with everything from national costumes to huge posters. Hundreds of correspondents from federal, regional and international media have been accredited for the press conference. The final number of participants is unknown, but in recent years it has tended to 2 thousand. And some of the Western media will fly specially to the event, said earlier the press secretary of the head of state Dmitry Peskov.
- Now, perhaps, the main topic is the rise in prices and the prohibitive key rate. It is clear that it is not the rate itself, but its consequences: inability to buy housing, problems at enterprises. People want to hear from the president his strategic priorities: how he sees the further development of the country in these conditions so that people can improve their lives," political scientist Dmitry Yelovsky told Izvestia.
There will also be questions that concern the SVO: is there any movement on the negotiation track and how the state will adapt special operations veterans to peaceful life.
Last year, the direct line combined with the big press conference lasted 4 hours and 4 minutes. During this time, the head of state answered 67 questions from Russian citizens and representatives of domestic and foreign media. Journalists were more interested in the situation in the zone of defense, the terms of peace with Ukraine, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the prospects for normalizing relations with the European Union and the United States. Russians, on the other hand, were concerned about the problematic situation with a sharp rise in the price of eggs, the president's opinion on the ban on abortion and the commission on payment for housing and utilities services.
Vladimir Putin, both as president and as head of government, usually held two separate major events: a large press conference and a direct line. Both of them appeared back in 2001. However, the combined format was first tried in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, calling it a press conference with elements of a direct line. In 2023, the big press conference and the direct line were finally combined into the program "Results of the Year with Vladimir Putin".
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a joint direct line with citizens and a big press conference with journalists at Gostiny Dvor, December 14, 2023
- The format of combining a direct line and a press conference is new, not quite established, and it is too early to assess its effectiveness. So far, it looks more like a tribute to traditional media. In general, in 2024, there are more effective means of communication to disseminate a direct signal from the president. But the role of the media in their interpretation and decoding is of course huge," says Dmitry Yelovsky.
According to statistics, the shortest press conference lasted 1 hour and 35 minutes. It was the first meeting of the president with journalists in 2001 in such a format. The longest - 4 hours and 40 minutes - was the 2008 press conference. As for direct lines, in 2001, the president spoke to citizens for 2 hours and 20 minutes, and in 2013, a record 4 hours and 47 minutes.
