Q: Should St. Isaac's Cathedral [in St. Petersburg] be a museum or be given to the church?
A: Russia is a secular state. The cathedral was built for people to pray in. But today it’s almost like an atheism museum. I think we can combine the two. Look at the Vatican.
Q: Artists have been harassed and persecuted in Russia [re: the movie Matilda and Kirill Serebrennikov].
A: It's a big country, there are many points of view. I hope this dialogue remains within the legal framework, though.
No comment about Serebrennikov.
Q: Can we have more direct flights between cities in Russia?
A: You are right, this is a good idea. We are working on it. There will be more airports, too.
Some Putin quotes from the show so far:
"There is a particular point in holding such [Q&A] events once a year given that in areas where [officials] were slow to move, they might do something positive -- maybe a road will be build where one is badly needed, maybe health-care issues will be sorted out as well as other social issues, etc. All this is of technical significance, but something else is important to me -- a chance to gauge the mood of the people."
"What does objective data tell us? It tells us that the recession of the Russian economy has been overcome and we have entered a period of growth."
"Real income has dropped over the past couple of years. What is most alarming is that the number of people living below the poverty line with income below the minimum living wage has increased."
"The history of Russia shows that we have been living under [foreign] sanctions since the moment Russia started rising and feeling strong. Every time our international partners see Russia becoming a serious competitor, some sort of restrictions are being introduced under various excuses. This has been the case throughout our history -- I'm not even speaking about the Soviet period, this had been happening before as well, even before the so-called October Revolution."
"Now we know that a new bill to expand sanctions has again surfaced in the United States Senate. Speaking of which, why? There is nothing extraordinary going on at the moment, so why are they talking about sanctions on a zero basis? Obviously, this speaks of an internal political struggle in the United States, nevertheless, this is happening and I believe it is rather baseless. Had there been no Crimea and other issues, they would have come up with something else in order to restrain Russia."
"What happened with these [Western] sanctions? And how have they impacted us? Have they or not? Well, yes, they have impacted us. Has this impact been fundamental? I don't think so. The general international situation has affected us more, including the drop of prices of our traditional goods -- oil, gas, metallurgical industry, chemical industry output, etc."
"Should our partners begin lifting sanctions imposed against our economy, we will be obliged to do the same, otherwise we will face problems in the WTO [World Trade Organization]."
Q from a flooded village: Our house is ruined. I have three children. We don’t know what to do. We hope you could help.
A: This is so bizarre. The state hasn't paid you anything? We sent the money. Where did it go?
All in all, Putin talked about Ukraine for about 10 minutes.