Rarely does a table get as much attention as the large table where Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron sat when they met.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz also sat at the front of the shiny white table during his visit on Tuesday - about six meters away from his counterpart as the crow flies.

Some read the arrangement as a symbol of substantive distance, while others used it as a template for jokes.

Memes on the internet repurposed the table as a ping-pong table or added the twelve apostles, "Last Supper" style.

Videos also went around the world in which Putin and Macron rocked at the table like children.

Franziska Proell

Editor in Politics.

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"I recognized him as soon as I saw him.

I'm proud of it.

I'm always happy when I see my work in the background of something important," said Renato Pologna of the Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera".

The table is six meters long and 2.60 meters wide.

It was made of wood, painted white and decorated with gold leaf ornaments by hand.

The businessman from Cantù near Como describes the conference table as a “very small part” of the work he did in the Kremlin between 1995 and 1997.

"It's the building that you can see behind Lenin's mausoleum, which now houses the president's offices and the presidential residence," Pologna said.

In addition to the large hall in which Putin met Scholz and Macron, he also furnished the president's offices, the library and the Catherine Hall.

He was responsible for furniture, Pologna said, but subcontracted other work, such as stucco on the ceiling and marble paneling.

In total, he worked on 7,000 square meters on two floors.

A Spaniard also claims to have built the table

However, less than a day after the interview with Pologna appeared, the Spanish online newspaper NIUS published an article headlined “From Valencia to the Kremlin: The giant table that Putin chose for his meeting with Macron was made in Alcàsser”.

A Vicente, who is described as a well-known furniture manufacturer from Alcàsser, a municipality around 15 kilometers south of Valencia, expresses himself in it.

He also states that he made the table “as one of many pieces of furniture” for the Kremlin.

Vicente remains a bit vague on the order date.

"He thinks," they say, that was in 2005, when a Russian delegation visited the furniture fair in Valencia.

A “foreign agent” got him the job.

It would have been nice to have asked Vicente personally.

In Alcàsser, there is a furniture entrepreneur named Vicente Zaragoza, who has pictures of Putin-style tables on his website.

But he doesn't respond to calls or emails – suspiciously.

Since it was founded in 1972, the company has won customers from more than 40 countries, according to the website: "Our furniture has been bought by presidents of countries as diverse as Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Singapore, the Philippines, Ukraine and Cambodia."

In an interview, Pologna, the Italian furniture manufacturer, talked in detail about his visits to the Kremlin.

“I remember the security was impressive.

We had a pass to get in and out.

The furniture had to go through the scanner, we weren't allowed to take any photos.” He said he didn't get to know Boris Yeltsin, the then Russian President.

Pologna only gives an approximate estimate of his income.

"I don't remember the exact numbers, maybe a few billion lire," he is quoted as saying.

A billion lire would be more than 500,000 euros at today's exchange rate.

How much would a copy of the table made famous by Putin cost today?

"Oh, maybe 100,000 euros," said the entrepreneur, who apparently mainly produces for affluent customers.

"I set up a lot in Arab countries, for sheikhs and royal families." Muammar al-Gaddafi also commissioned him.

Whether the conference table comes from Italy or Spain, whether Pologna or Zaragoza made it - its length has nothing to do with the distance rules of the pandemic, because it predates the virus.

He struck a chord with his idiosyncratic aesthetics.

In any case, Pologna finds the memes on the Internet funny: “We can say that it is a table that stimulates creativity.” One can only hope so.