MOSCOW - Music legends Deep Purple and Tina Turner joined Russian stars Monday to crank out their best hits as Russia's likeliest next president Dmitry Medvedev and other top Russian officials celebrated gas giant Gazprom's 15th anniversary.
Medvedev, Russia's deputy prime minister and Gazprom's chairman of the board of directors, and Gazprom's chief executive Alexei Miller clapped and bobbed their heads as Deep Purple thundered out "Smoke on the Water" and other all-time greats for the lavish celebration at the Kremlin.
A large screen meanwhile gave a slide show of 1970s' hippie anti-war protests and even, at one time, a cover of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's bitter Gulag Archipelago book decrying Joseph Stalin's terror campaigns.
Tina Turner also regaled the audience with her signature "Private Dancer" and other hits at the final stage of the five-hour concert that also included Russia's most famous rock and pop stars like Alla Pugacheva and Glukoza.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also attended the jubilee briefly, leaving after the concert's first act, but Medvedev, his designated successor, stayed on, even doing a little dance with Pugacheva.
Putin on Monday congratulated Gazprom on its 15th anniversary, saying the world's largest gas company was a "guarantor of global energy stability."
A state-controlled monopoly established in 1993, Gazprom has been described as a "state within a state." It has a market value of approximately 300 billion dollars (207 billion euros) and employs 430,000 people.
The company has been criticised for cutting supplies to neighbouring countries in pricing disputes that critics say are politically motivated.
Domestic critics say the company's vast resources are used by the Kremlin to push its domestic agenda.
cb-cal/rl
02/11/2008 23:08 GMT