Strange Bedfellows

Twitter Brings White House, Kremlin Together

John Hudson Jun 24, 2010

On Wednesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev toured the headquarters of Twitter. Besides having a fruitful cultural exchange with Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, he also fired off his first tweet:

Всем привет! Я в Твиттере и это мое6 первое сообщение!less than a minute ago via webПрезидент России
KremlinRussia

The message roughly translates to "Hello everyone, I'm now on Twitter and this is my first message." Appropriately, his maiden tweet has a typo (notice the number 6 amid the Russian script). Delightfully, the White House quickly welcomed its sovereign counterpart with an amicable retweet:

Welcome to @twitter President Medvedev! RT @KremlinRussia_E: Hello everyone! I'm on Twitter, and this is my first tweet.less than a minute ago via HootSuiteThe White House
whitehouse

Proof that the White House and Kremlin can get along?

As an aside, kudos to the White House's social-media aide for discovering Medvedev's tweet, drafting a response and getting official approval a mere three hours after the tweet was sent.

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John Hudson

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Topics: Russia

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