United Russia held its annual congress in St. Petersburg on Saturday, where President Dmitry Medvedev issued it with a ‘dressing down‘, warning leaders about ‘backwardness‘, ‘bureaucratic intrigues and games‘, and urged the party to get rid of ‘bad political habits‘ such as restricting the openness of elections. (The Moscow Times notes that Medvedev took a similar tone with the party at last year’s congress.) Prime Minister Vladimir Putin spoke in agreement with Medvedev’s state-of-the-nation address from earlier this month, saying that the crisis ‘has shown how costly it is for a country to reject innovation, have low worker productivity, waste resources and have a slow bureaucracy‘, but also offered United Russia ‘mild praise‘.  Boris Gryzlov, meanwhile, unveiled a new party ideology of ‘Russian conservatism‘.