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Gray-haired Russian Journalist at "Shanghai Five" Summit
Seventy-five-year-old V. Ovchinnikov from the Russian newspaper is the eldest among more than 400 journalists to cover the sixth "Shanghai Five" summit.
Chinese president Jiang Zemin instantly recognized him while meeting with a pool of journalists from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan Thursday morning. The president offered to take a shot with Ovchinnikov.
The gray-haired political commentator is an old China hand.
In the 1950s, he had worked as a reporter at the Beijing bureau of Pravda. After that he also paid a number of visits to China during his tenure as the newspaper's political commentator.
Late Chinese leaders Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping all met with him. In fact, his Chinese name Ou Fuqin was personally chosen by late Chinese premier Zhou. "Old Ou" was well known among many Chinese journalists.
From 1992 to 1996, Ovchinnikov worked with Xinhua News Agency as a Russian polisher. He was known as a modest person by his Chinese colleagues. On his desk is a card reading "Is it not a pleasure to learn and going over from time to time", an excerpt from Confucius's works that indicated clearly his attitude towards work.
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