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Messrs Putin and Chirac attended a concert at the Grand Hall of the St Petersburg Philharmonic, where Yury Temirkanov’s orchestra performed segments of Peter Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker and a suite from the ballet Daphnis and Chloe by Maurice Ravel.

After the concert, the two presidents went to the foyer to meet with members of the Russian and the French artistic elites. During this informal forum, dubbed “Russian-French Cultural Dialogues: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow,” Putin reiterated Moscow’s commitment to economic integration with the European Union. He said the idea had been inspired by former French President Charles de Gaulle’s vision of a wider Europe, one that would stretch from the Atlantic all the way to the Ural Mountains.

Putin and Chirac spoke, among others, with the head of St Petersburg’s Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky. The Russian president used the occasion to thank the EU for helping renovate the world-famous art museum.

The two leaders then left the Philharmonic to walk toward the nearby Russian Museum, another major art museum in St. Petersburg, with hundreds of local residents and guests waiting outside to greet them.