Zee Beam News

MOSCOW. April 28 (Interfax) - Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn decried in an interview published on Friday the existence of ordinary Russians, which "remains hard and without much order," chided former leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, and had some positive words to say about Vladimir Putin's presidency. "In the times of [former Soviet president] Gorbachev, the very notion and understanding of statehood was cast aside. The same line was in effect pursued in the times of [former Russian president] Yeltsin, but it was further aggravated by the colossal plundering of property in Russia, of national wealth, and with the absence of any constraints and the condoning of state chaos," the former Soviet dissident told the newspaper Moscow News. Since Putin became president, "efforts have begun to be made to salvage the statehood that has been in a mess," the author said. "Admittedly, some of these attempts were rather of a cosmetic nature initially, but then they began to manifest themselves more clearly. Our foreign policy, taking into account our current situation and our resources, is reasonable and increasingly far-sighted. But because of the legacy of predecessors, there is still very much in Russia that has not been rescued from a state of decay," he said. "Preserving the people" - stopping the fall in the population and making it physically and morally healthy - should be the main task of the Russian state, Solzhenitsyn said.