EN
The visit of the president of Russion Federation, Dmitrij Miedwiediew, to Poland on December 6 and 7, 2010 became not only an important diplomatic event, but foremost an important and major step forward to improve Polish-Russian relationships. This meeting came eight years since the visit of President Vladimir Putin in 2002. Press, radio, public and commercial television broadly high-lighted the events surrounding this visit. From a public relations perspective by objective observers this visit had almost a byzantine character. Exaggerated displays of Russian and Polish flags, broad smiles by both presidents, enthusiastic hand shaking and warm friendship to photojournalists aimed to convince the world and Polish public opinion, that Polish-Russian relations were on the doorstep of entering a new era. Statements by Polish politicians as well as many mainstream journalists, were focused on the “emotional-protocol sphere” of this visit, as well its role to neutralize in Poland the permanent “Russo phobia” or “anti-Russian stigmata”. It was also noted that contemporary Poland and Russia is bound together by gas, oil and the atom. The visit of the Russian president in Warsaw, at its conclusion, was accepted as a success by influential opinion forming circles in Warsaw whose voice is “Gazeta Wyborcza”.