New notes from new Russian embasador

Last Friday, Russia appointed Alexander Veshnyakov as the new Russian embassador to Latvia. He is best known as the long time chairmen of Central Election Commision of Russia. For a few days after that, our media were busy translating Russian jokes about Veshnyakov (for example, about him trying to decide whether a three-headed dragon gets one vote or three) into Latvian.

The most interesting was, however, his attitude towards Latvia. He was interviewed by Echo of Moscow radio station before leaving for Latvia and he declared that he will learn Latvian because he considers that as a measure of respect for the country to which he is appointed as the embassador. I've never heard that before from any of previous Russian embassadors...