Roll over Beast, the Russian Hippo is here for G20... or is it?

London, April 2 (IANS) In the end, it was the curtains that gave it away.

As G20 leaders began arriving at the summit venue in London Thursday, much breathless media attention focused on US President Barack Obama's $300,000 armoured-plated black limousine, dubbed The Beast.

But then an excited BBC correspondent, live on television, urged news anchors to 'watch out for' Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's limousine, saying rumour had it that it was even better than Obama's.

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A quick internet search by IANS - try googling Medvedev limousine - revealed a Moscow Times article about the Russian President's car, which it said had been developed at a cost of $60 million by ZiL, the Russian manufacturers famous for making armour-plated limousines for Soviet era leaders.

Called the Hippopotamus, it weighed 16 tonnes.

While the Beast could withstand a missile attack, the occupants of the Russian Hippo would survive a small nuclear attack, the Moscow Times quoted Kremlin officials as saying.

'The American car is a good car if you are in a little trouble, but ours is ready for a war,' the official said.

The Russian car was reported to have a 12-centimeter-thick titanium plated roof and its designers were so confident of their creation they sat inside the car while Russian soldiers shot rocket-propelled grenades at it.

Medvedev's limousine, the Moscow Times gloated, has 'more armour, more weapons and more curtains on the back window than The Beast.'

It seemed to be a throwback from the US-Russia technological rivalries from the Cold War years, but journalists calling up the London office of Itar-Tass, the Russian news agency, came upon an Iron Curtain.

'Hippo? What hippo? No, my friend, we have never heard of this limousine you are talking about. We are a bit busy covering the G20 summit you know. Bye,' said a Russian journalist impatiently - clearly unimpressed by the early morning call.

It was then that the curtains reappeared: the Moscow Times report said the limousine came complete with 'the curtains on the back windows - a tribute to a feature of limousines used by Soviet nomenklatura.'

Curtains on the back window in 2009? Surely not...

Russian satire doesn't get much better than this. If only the BBC correspondent had read the date on the story: April 1, All Fool's Day.