We don’t see many of those that often these days. Cool. Business not as usual, for once.

Human rights violations? Harrassment of the opposition? Let the Sochi Winter Games begin? Nein, danke! Not with me. Gauck. Finde ich gut.

Gauck, a former Lutheran pastor who played a key part in the East German protest movement before the fall of the Berlin Wall, has declined any official visits to Russia since coming to office in March 2012 and repeatedly criticised the country’s “deficit of rule of law” and “air of imperialism”.