Their Name is Legion (or How awards lose their value) By Grigory Pasko, journalist Don’t tell me you’re still not a Knight of the Order of the Legion of Honor! Lately I’ve been getting the impression that they seem to be giving it out to just about anybody over there in France. Recently, French president Nicolas Sarkozy personally pinned the Order of the Legion of Honor – France’s highest decoration – on the vice-premier of the Russian government – the head of the apparat of the government, Sergey Naryshkin. Many people already know who Sarkozy is, but who has ever heard of Naryshkin? The fact is that he became deputy chairman of the government of Russia a mere 9 months ago. Before this, his career had followed the usual trajectory for a Soviet bureaucrat – an ordinary chinovnik: from assistant to the pro-rector of an institute to head of the government apparat. Absolutely nothing noteworthy whatsoever about this personality. Apparently, during the award ceremony, Sarkozy did make some sort of a vague allusion to Naryshkin’s achievements at his post as a member of the international committee of the Eurasian Economic Community. But Naryshkin has been at this post only a few months – since April 2007! They say he’s a good swimmer. He even heads the swimming federation in Russia. So then maybe it’s for swimming that Sarkozy awarded him the Order of the Legion of Honor?