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Previously the Presidential Council for Science, Technology and Education presented candidates for national awards to the Russian President.

Today the President signed a decree on awarding three prizes in science and technology and three others in art and literature. A prize for outstanding achievements in the cultural and educational spheres will also be awarded.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has been awarded the prize for outstanding achievements in the cultural and educational spheres. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is famous in Russia and throughout the world both as a writer and a major historian. His works on critical phases of Russian history have influenced the development of world historiography. He was a pioneer in the important fields of historical anthropology and cultural studies. Solzhenitsyn’s main work, Gulag Archipelago, was the first record of one of the tragedies of the Soviet period. The author presented this phenomenon as an embodiment of the totalitarian systems of the 20th century. Writing this work was the first step towards gathering the recollections and testimonies of former prisoners within a single record, and therefore conducting a specific type of historic research. The Red Wheel, Solzhenitsyn’s multiple volume work has had significant resonance in Russian and world historiography. The Russia Abroad Foundation Library was established at Solzhenitsyn’s initiative and holds more than 50,000 works. The writer himself gave this library more than 1,500 books, including the memoirs of Russian emigrants, collections of their letters, manuscripts on the activities of Russian emigration, and the archives of the head commander of the Russian army in the First World War.

The 2006 national awards in science and technology have been awarded to:

Iuri Guliaev, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics and Vladislav Pustovoit, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences Scientific and Technical Centre for Unique Instrument-Making, for their fundamental and applied research on creating acoustoelectronics and acustooptics;

Sergei Kovalev, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head designer and academic head of the design of strategic submarine cruise missiles and ice-resistant marine oil and gas extraction and reconnaissance platforms of the Rubin Design Bureau for Marine Technology; Igor Spasskii, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, first deputy general director of the Rubin Design Bureau; David Pashaev, President of the Russian State Nuclear Shipbuilding Centre, for the design, creation and development of three generations of nuclear underwater missile carriers; and,

Aleksandr Konovalov, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, director of the N. N. Burdenko Institute of Neurosurgery of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, for developing the scientific bases and application of high-tech microneurosurgery and introducing modern methods for treating brain disease into medical practice.

The 2006 national awards in literature and art have been awarded to:

Personnel from the National Film Preservation Foundation Nikolai Borodachev, Irina Vasina and Vladimir Dmitriev for their outstanding contribution to the preservation and development of national and international film art, and for reestablishing and promoting the best in Russian and world cinema;

Olga Borodina, singer, for her contribution to Russian and world music through outstanding performances and the creation of epic images; and,

Svetlana Zakharova, ballerina, for her exceptional stage performances and role in developing the great traditions of Russian ballet.

President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Iuri Osipov and State Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovskii announced the names of the winners at a special ceremony in the Kremlin. Iuri Osipov is deputy head of the Council for Science, Technology and Education while Mikhail Piotrovskii is deputy head of the Council for Culture and the Arts. President Vladimir Putin heads both councils.