I enjoy every time I'm reminded humor (and trolling) can get really weird no matter where you are on this planet. Somewhat wholesome that those presidents even addressed the question instead of just having it filtered out.
Now I just have to remember to bring this up in the right moment when talking to colleagues coming from a Russian-speaking country. :-)
This popped in my head every time I've seen https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38915759 on HN yesterday. Glad English-speaking Internet now also knows about this piece of Runet history!
The Kazakh, Ukrainian and Armenian presidents were all able to give pretty good answers in the circumstances, recognising the joke, taking it as a joke but still managing to sound reasonably technically competent. I can't imagine many Western leaders responding in such an "in the know" way to what seems like a fairly obscure meme.
It is easy to imagine. Press team picks a question, googles or asks friends, then puts the answer on teleprompter or on a sheet of paper. The president has just one job — to read it with confidence in front of the camera when asked.
The president who would be able to do it by themselves has not yet born on this planet.
8<-----------------------
On March 26th, 2008, 'iamtankist' of LiveJournal had his question answered on Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan's LiveJournal,
In Russian,
iamtankist: Господин Президент, не подскажете как пропатчить KDE под BSD?
serzhsargsyan: Мне знающие люди посоветовали не заморачиваться с патчами, а ставить из портов.
In English,
iamtankist: Mr. President, how does one patch KDE under the BSD?
serzhsargsyan: I know people are advised not to bother with the patch and use ports instead.