Barring some remarkable turn of events, in about 14 months the first Medvedev presidency will come to an unremarkable conclusion.  Perhaps sensing the ticking clock, and eager to leave his signature on at least one successful item of public policy, the president has steered his agenda away from the challenging pursuits of anti-corruption, legal nihilism, and modernization, focusing instead on the lowest-hanging fruit:  improving the lot of Russia’s children.

He’s picked a good issue.  In terms of health, education, and resources for Russia’s children, especially orphans and the economically vulnerable, they need all the help they can get.  According to some numbers gathered in an article on GlobalPost, there are “almost 700,000 young people in Russia who have been abandoned by their families — one out of every 27 children. Less than 15 percent of these children are orphans in the full sense of the word; the majority have living relatives.”