MOSCOW. April 17 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin's annual "direct line" call-in live televised broadcast will begin at noon Moscow time on April 17, the Kremlin press service has reported.
The program will be broadcast live on the Channel 1, Rossiya 1 and Rossiya 24 television stations, as well as the Mayak, Vesti FM and Radio of Russia radio stations.
"In line with the traditions established by the previous programs, the head of state will answer questions from Russian citizens concerning issues of the country's social, political and socioeconomic life, as well as the international situation," it said.
"As in previous years, both guests invited to the program studio, citizens of our country with whom Putin will communicate during live link-ups with Russian regions, as well as people who will make phone calls or send SMS-messages to the unified messages processing center will be able to submit their questions to the president of Russia. In addition to that, pre-recorded video questions will be accepted for the first time this year," the Kremlin press service said.
"The most interesting and relevant questions received by the unified messages processing center and the program website will be suggested to Putin during the live broadcast," it said.
It will be Putin's 12th call-in live broadcast, and his eighth one as president of Russia. Like before, the intrigue of the upcoming session is whether Putin will set another record in terms of the session's duration. In 2013, the live program lasted a record four hours and 47 minutes, which is 20 minutes longer than the year before. Putin answered 85 questions during that session.
As a rule, there is no time limit for these sessions.
During the live program, residents of various regions are able to ask the president questions directly via video communication. In 2013, the studio in Gostiny Dvor had video calls from the Primorye Territory, the village of Prokhorovka in the Belgorod region, Moscow, the Moscow region, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Novosibirsk, and Khabarovsk.
Before the broadcast, Putin selects some of the questions that he then answers on the program.
Presidential press officer Dmitry Peskov reiterated more than once that questions asked on live programs are not "prearranged."
Putin has also been asked questions by guests present in the studio. Among them were prominent people and ordinary citizens with whom Putin had met during the year, including during trips in the country.
According to the call center, more than three million calls were taken during the 2013 live session, which lasted more than four hours. As in the previous years, most questions addressed issues such as social security, consumer prices and wages. Naturally, there were many questions about current political events. Unusually, there were just a few personal questions.
Last year's call-in show was memorable for its unexpected and quite lengthy debate on the economic situation in the country between the president and former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who was invited to the program studio.
Another highlight of last year's broadcast was an appeal to Putin from Irina Antonova, who then held the post of director of Moscow's Pushkin Museum of the Fine Arts. Antonova asked the president to help revive the Contemporary Western Art Museum, which earlier transferred a part of its collection in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Antonova's request sparked an argument with State Hermitage Museum Director Mikhail Piatrovsky, who joined the program from St. Petersburg.
The president traditionally gave his assessment of the Russian government's performance and advised against any hasty cabinet reshuffles.
During the 2013 call-in program, Putin also proposed introducing a luxury real estate tax and ordered the government to agree upon all decisions needed for the country's pension reform as soon as possible.
Furthermore, the program concept underwent certain changes last year.
Putin's press secretary said that "the principle of forming its audience on Russian territory was changed drastically."
"Whereas earlier this audience consisted simply of all the people who were at a certain enterprise or on some street at that moment, our current principle is that representatives of culture and the intelligentsia gather at one place, scholars and students gather at the second place, World War II veterans and representatives of search units gather at the third place, another group is rural residents, in another place it is a large family or a family with a very large number of adopted children because this topic is very relevant today," he said.