United Press International: White House Watch: Caviar Anyone? Russian President Vladimir Putin is relating an anecdote about his friend George W. Bush to photographers at the Hermitage, this city's magnificent palace museum.

The night before in Moscow, he said, as he was serving caviar to Bush and guests' at a dinner at the presidential residence, he explained to Bush how Russia produces caviar.

They catch the sturgeon, open up the fish, carefully remove the eggs, close the fish and throw it back into the water. Everyone at the table is laughing, they don't believe Putin. Laura Bush is laughing, Ludmilla Putin is laughing, Secretary of State Colin Powell is laughing, Condoleezza Rice is laughing, and the Russian foreign minister is laughing.

"Everybody was laughing -thinking I was really inventing things on the spot, something really improbable" Putin relates. "And there was only one person who wouldn't laugh and said 'I do believe you, Mr. President,' and that was the president of the United States."