MOSCOW — Let other capitals go all weak-kneed when President Barack Obama visits. Moscow has greeted Obama as if he were just another dignitary passing through.
Crowds did not clamor for a glimpse of him. Headlines offered only glancing or flippant notice of his activities. Television programming was uninterrupted; devotees of the Russian Judge Judy had nothing to fear.
Even many students and alumni of the Western-oriented business school where Obama gave the graduation address Tuesday seemed only respectful but hardly enthralled.
“We don’t really understand why Obama is such a star,” said Kirill Zagorodnov, 25, one of the graduates. “It’s a question of trust, how he behaves, how he positions himself, that typical charisma, which in Russia is often parodied. Russians really are not accustomed to it. It is like he is trying to manipulate the public.”
Others suggested that after decades of social turmoil, Russians were simply exhausted with politics and had been so often disappointed by Western leaders that they were not inclined to get excited by the latest one.
Asked by one Moscow newspaper what they expected to come out of Obama’s visit, 80 percent of readers had the same answer: traffic jams.
Some Obama aides said they were struck by the low-key reception here, especially when compared with the outpouring on some of his other foreign trips.
Even first lady Michelle Obama, who typically enjoys admiring coverage in the local news media when she travels, has not had her every move chronicled here.
The New York Times
