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Forty-three young specialists from 18 Russian regions took part in the competitions. Aside from winning the overall team count, the Russian team won, for the first time, 5 medals in basic skills categories: Gold medals in Electronics and Refrigeration and Air Conditioning; silver medals in the Graphic Designer category and in Mobile Robotics; and a bronze medal in the ICT Specialists category.

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: I would like to welcome and congratulate all of you, participants and winners of the European competition and your coaches and mentors.

I know that the Agency for Strategic Initiatives took an active part in your training, namely your coaches, and Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets was in charge.

I do not know whether you yourselves expected this result, but at any rate, you prepared and worked to attain it. We discussed this yesterday: I think your rivals hardly expected to come across such strong competition.

Your first place in the overall team count is certainly very good and useful. Not only useful for you as a good start in your future jobs and professions, but also a good signal that will undoubtedly raise the prestige of vocational jobs, which is very important today.

It is not so much the prestige that matters but rather specialists like you. Our economy needs such specialists because the training you have makes further progress and development possible.

I am convinced that this should have an impact on the entire professional skills’ training system, particularly in the regions so that enterprises and administrative bodies could work to meet the standards you are setting now.

I intend to speak to governors and encourage them to meet with you in the regions where you live to see how relevant skilled specialists are trained and to provide all the necessary assistance.

We also, of course, are relying on you for the 2019 WorldSkills Competition in Kazan. I believe you will demonstrate all your brilliant skills and potential. I would like to wish you luck, and I hope the Government will continue to support this wonderful movement.

Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets: Yes, of course, many colleges have already joined the movement. At the moment, 2,600 colleges out of 3,000 are already applying the WorldSkills standards. Interestingly, the young people from 19 Russian regions who were on the national team work together as a team in real life, too.

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