One of my American friends with commercial interests in Russia invited me to lunch in early March. The first matter of business before us was how to pronounce the last name of the newly-elected Russian president. My friend carefully repeated after me – Me-dve-dev… At the fifth attempt we could see signs of success.

“It’s even better than how Hillary Clinton said his name,” my friend joked. “Soon, I will be able to speak his name without any problems: Medve-dev, Medve-dev. Just let me practice a little.”

Naturally, Bob did not invite me for lunch for phonetics practice.

- You surely know that my business in Russia is starting to grow at a fast pace. I really hope that the election of the new president will not bring any disappointing surprises. Businessmen like predictability, when there are clear rules of the game. I think that Mr. Medvedev will follow through with the political and economic course of his predecessor Mr. Putin. I am relying on it. Mr. Medvedev also has a good legal education. I know that he taught at a university for a number of years. It would be interesting to hear from some of his students.

- I can satisfy your curiosity in that regard, I answered. Just yesterday, my husband told me that his professor at the School of Law at the University of St. Petersburg in the late 1980s was none other than Dmitriy Anatolyevich Medvedev. 

- Are you telling me that the publisher of Russian-American Business took classes from the would-be Russian president? We are starting to find personal connections already!

- Medvedev taught my husband’s Roman Law course, I continued. The young professor seemed to be a calm, well-intentioned, but at the same time strict person. Medvedev had a very high esteem for the subject he was teaching. He’d say that Roman law is the basis for all principles in today’s jurisprudence. After the oral exam, Medvedev asked my husband whether he studied English. “How did you know that?” he replied. “You pronounce Latin terms with an English accent… But that is not a problem.”

- In those years of the Perestroika, university professors were not too well-off economically. It very frequently happened that right after exams, students and professors would have tea parties right in the lecture halls. These gatherings rarely passed without shots of vodka. My husband does not recall whether or not Dmitriy Medvedev joined their group on such occasions, but it very well could have been the case.

Bob became excited after hearing what I had to say.

“It’s perfect. It means that he is an ordinary person. I hope that our new leader, whoever it may be, will have a good personal relationship with Mr. Medvedev. Of course, we’ll not have the same kind of relations as President Putin and George Bush had, but who knows?”   

Olga Tarasova