Grigory Logvinov press conference ran longer than the Volga

“I looked the man in the eye,” George W. Bush once said of Vladimir Putin. “I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

Who knows what he would have sensed if he’d gazed into Grigory Logvinov’s today. During a press conference that ran longer than the Volga, the Russian ambassador’s eyes alternated between anger, wounded national pride, amusement, and an inconsolable, hurt bewilderment.

Yes Logvinov looks like he might have been dreamt up as a gift for cartoonists — Bond villain meets Lowes catalogue — but ultimately it’s those eyes that draw you in. Wildly expressive orbs, they encourage you to go along for the ride as the representative of a country with a long and energetic reputation for knocking off its foes abroad takes umbrage at the suggestion his country has tried to knock off a foe abroad.

Grigory Logvinov went from anger to mirth during his hour long press conference. Picture: AAP.

And as a man born and bred in a land with a reputation for novelists whose output can be measured by the kilogram, Logvinov was not even remotely stingy with his words. He was there for a long time, not a good time.

Julia Gillard gave it a crack once with a press conference about a slush fund, not budging until every question had been asked and journalists were faint with exhaustion. But Logvinov was next level.

When it comes to any sort of prolonged performance, you can expect lulls and stretches of filler. Think of Rossini’s famous sledge of a contemporary: “Monsieur Wagner has good moments, but awful quarters of an hour!”

Grigory Logvinov just kept the hits coming. Picture: AAP.

But Logvinov just kept the hits coming. There was indignation. There was accusation. There was more than a little chutzpah. There were topical jokes. And there were exchanges so good they cried out for immediate immortalisation in marble:

Journalist: “Do you realise how stupid you sound when you say there are no Russian spies in Australia?”

Logvinov: “I do not feel stupid. I know what I am saying.”

And this.

Journalist: “Do you see the irony when your country is known for show trials?”

Logvinov: “First of all, that is not ... Let’s not look into domestics.”

Somewhere amid it all, people who pine for the comforting certainties of the Cold War felt a strange calm descend.

But eventually, the sun had to set even on this empire of words. One journalist, either out of Stockholm syndrome or the realisation he’d just seen something truly remarkable, said to Logvinov, “Let’s do this again some time.”

And then it was done, journalists left to wander back to the dimly remembered outside world, trying to jog their memories as to how to get back to offices

Everything’s relative, of course; Putin holds press conferences that last four times as long.