Moscow - Russia watchers were long curious to hear President Dmitry Medvedev's first national address, originally scheduled for October 23. Now, interest has only grown, after a last-minute decision was made to delay it by almost two weeks.

Speculation about the speech, scheduled for November 5, is rampant. For the past eight years, it has been delivered by former president - now Prime Minister - Vladimir Putin.

The president's office provided no reason for the delay. Igor Shuvalov, Putin's chief economic advisor and deputy premier, told daily Vedomosti that Medvedev needed to personally revise the draft.

National media initially speculated that the global financial crisis forced a change to the content of the speech.

But Medvedev posted a video on his website on October 23 commenting on the financial turmoil. The Kremlin's press service says the six-minute web clip is as deep as Medvedev is willing to wade to the crisis, which has sucked over 70 per cent of the value from Russia's stocks when they peaked in May.

The speech, Medvedev's spokeswoman Natalya Timakova has said repeatedly, will not touch upon the current economic situation, but an old leitmotif from the campaign days: Russia's development strategy to 2020.

Putin introduced the plan in his farewell address before ushering his protege Medvedev into office. Much has changed since that day, when Medvedev stood at Putin's shoulder, pledging to follow his plan. Russia has fought a war with Georgia. And the damage from its market collapse is just beginning to be felt.

Medvedev's speech was drafted by his economic advisor Arkady Dvorkovich as a presidential project. However, it needed to be reviewed by Putin's advisor Shuvalov before delivery.

"Today we have moved from one point of power to a two-headed government. The address is now both the position of the president and of the premier," said Alexei Makarkin, the deputy head of the Centre for Political Technologies, a think tank that reportedly provides policy advice to Medvedev's administration.

"The final decision (on the speech) is not only in the Kremlin but also in the government. I think that is the principal reason for the delay," he said. "The second reason is the financial situation."

Some of the countries' top economists and commentators are saying the slump in oil prices has invalidated Russia's allover economic policy, which has been based on the assumption of years of prosperity derived from petroleum.

More vocal critics charge the government's rescue plan is, in fact, driving the crisis.

Medvedev will stand in the Kremlin's largest and most sumptuously decorated hall Tuesday for his oratory, which will be broadcast across Russia's 11 time zones on all four of the state news channels and radio stations.

It is where Putin gave his farewell address, and a change in time and venue from the traditional yearly national speech. Rather than speaking about next year's politics in the spring, Medvedev speech Wednesday now falls the day after a Russian bank holiday and one day after the US elections.

But, if he addresses the US vote at all, it will be "quickly," business daily Kommersant reported Thursday, citing an unnamed Kremlin source.

"There are no two copies of the speech prepared in case one or the other candidate wins," the paper reported.

Russia's leaders have largely described the crisis as being exported from the United States, but added that the government is well equipped to handle it by dipping into its rainy-day oil windfalls fund.

"As a whole the situation is normal, our data for the last 9 months shows growth rates that will not fall below 7 per cent," Rossiiskaya Gazeta, regarded as a government mouthpiece, quoted Russian Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina as saying Wednesday.

"It might not be directly about the economy, but ... If he talks about the danger of the dollar as a reserve currency, social policy, the government's economic program - it's all related," Makarkin told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

But the message will be a familiar and popular one: Russia is less affected than the rest of the world.

"Medvedev will act as the leader of the country which has successfully coped with the situation," Vedomosti cited a Kremlin source Wednesday saying.

And analysts add: let's not forget Putin. (dpa)