Official website of the President of Russia

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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Laureates, friends,

I congratulate you on Russia Day!

In line with tradition, we are presenting National Awards for outstanding achievements in science and culture. This is a festive and solemn ceremony that symbolises the respect society has for the laureates, for their service to Russia. It also establishes the great significance of their creative, intellectual, humanitarian and educational activity, its enduring value for the progressive development of this country, for the education of the younger generation and for awakening the aspirations of people for self-improvement and for improving the world around them.

Russian history has always been dominated by spirituality, by traditions of compassion and support; there has been a constant mutual enrichment of cultures within our multi-ethnic people. Intelligentsia has always played a leading role in all these processes. For these people of various trades and social status serving society has always been of uttermost importance, and through their labour, their good taste and moral sensitivity they established the important mission of culture, science and creative search.

I expect the Year of Literature to become a significant project that would bring our society together. A corresponding executive order to hold such a year in 2015 has already been signed, along with an executive order on establishing the Presidential Council for the Russian Language.

Language, culture, history, moral values and national traditions are at the cornerstone, and the state and society should constantly focus on this. This is the only way we can develop with confidence, preserving our national identity and maintaining ourselves as a nation.

Dear laureates,

You have dedicated your lives to your cause; you put your dreams into reality and have achieved wonderful results. You are unique in your high social striving for working for society, for its moral development. You do everything within your powers to make sure that your knowledge, creativity and labour benefit this country. We are sincerely grateful to you for this. Before I say a few words about each one of you, I would like to stress this special constructive mission you all share.

Fazil Iskander is an outstanding writer, philosopher and thinker, who has received the National Award by right. He is a master of delicate, emotional and imaginative writing, both prose and poetry. His characters share a common desire to achieve harmony, traditional values and moral purity. Readers of various ethnicities find them understandable and treat them as role models in terms of honour and true love for their country.

The same dedication to our motherland is characteristic, along with wisdom and integrity, of Yevgeny Primakov. This public and state figure has made an outstanding contribution to strengthening our national security, to developing international law and promoting the notion of a multi-polar world.

His diplomatic gift came in useful in numerous complicated situations and invariably helped him achieve a peaceful and constructive solution, while his professional and personal authority has been acclaimed throughout the world.

Today Mr Primakov will receive the National Award for outstanding achievements in humanitarian work.

Yet another laureate represents the humanitarian sphere and the arts. Yury Bashmet is a talented orchestra conductor and a virtuoso musician. For many years now, his art has been at the focus of attention of the international music community.

Mr Bashmet is an outstanding teacher, who dedicated a large part of his life to educating young musicians, and to social activity and charity.

Brave, unselfish people are always on the side of justice. Exactly such a person – ice hockey player Valery Kharlamov – is the protagonist of the feature film Legenda № 17. Today its creators Nikolai Lebedev, Leonid Vereshchagin and Anton Zlatopolsky will also receive National Awards.

The development of space has always been the object of unquestionable pride for us. Anatoly Grigoryev has dedicated over 40 years to space medicine. It is mainly thanks to his discoveries that today space crews manage to fully recover after months-long space flights in a matter of days.

Such persevering and industrious people make it possible to broaden the limits of knowledge and promote progressive development.

All of this is true of Viktor Maslov, who is by right considered a legend of applied and fundamental mathematics. As he set new vectors of research in modern thermodynamics, Mr Maslov made it possible to find solutions to hundreds of extremely complicated problems in physics and engineering.

Unfortunately, for health reasons Mr Maslov cannot attend this ceremony. We extend our most sincere congratulations.

Another laureate is Alexander Chubaryan – an expert in world history, an outstanding scholar in the field of evolution of international systems and development of international relations. Mr Chubaryan stands at the head of the World History Institute, which plays a significant part in teaching the history of this country.

Every year, as we present the National Awards, we are amazed at the scale of the laureates’ talents, their generosity, their honourable deeds, their dedication to their cause and their desire to selflessly serve Russia and its people.

I would like to once again congratulate our laureates on their awards. Thank you.

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Friends, laureates,

It is always with great pleasure that I take part in these events. This is not only because of the exchange of pleasantries and display of mutual respect, not only because this happens on a special day and in such a grand setting, but mainly because it offers a possibility to single out and to speak about our results and our achievements.

We should not, and will never get dizzy with our success.

However, we should note our progress and single out the people who help our country move forward by making outstanding achievements in their respective fields of activity. And we will only move forward, as we have been lately doing in sports, science, public activities and international affairs.

I would like to thank our laureates once again. Even though you said today that every person present here was worthy of this award – and we have laureates of past years attending as well – unfortunately not all of us have reached the heights you did.

On behalf of the people, on behalf of the entire nation I would like to thank you for the years of creative work, for your hard work and your achievements for the benefit of Russia.

Happy Russia Day!