Komsomolskaya Pravda: " Vladimir Putin: “There Will Be A Lot of Work for You"”
The Prime Minister dedicated a bridge across the Oka in Vladimir Region, launched the Merry Starts sports festival and held a conference on the building of sports facilities in the country.
Vladimir Putin yesterday arrived in Murom where, according to a decision made two years ago, an old pontoon bridge across the Oka had to be replaced with a concrete and steel one. The 9.3 km bridge was badly needed for Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod regions. So the cost of construction was split between these regions and the federal budget. As a result 4.2 billion roubles was put together and the money was used to complete the bridge by the autumn in spite of the economic crisis.
On his way to Vladimir Mr Putin made a detour to visit Murom. He shook the hands of the workers who had surrounded him and promised that "there will be a lot of work". The words "bridge and crossing" were bandied about yesterday. Even in the children's competitions "Merry Starts" which Putin watched briefly after inaugurating the bridge featured a relay race called "crossing" where the kids helped each other to cross an imaginary turbulent river. Congratulating the winners, Putin said:
"Winning a team event is a very special pleasure. Feeling your comrade's shoulder supporting you is very important and very precious. But to those who have not won the top place I would like to say that there is no reason to be distressed. You have to be grateful for gaining the priceless experience of competitions, experience that will be your stepping stone to future victories." Vladimir Putin then gave about a hundred autographs to the youthful athletes (our correspondent made a careful count). It took 13 minutes off Putin working time.
The Premier then moved on to the topic of the building of sports facilities in Russia. Yesterday Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu was touting his Ministry's sporting achievements: he showed Putin a new swimming pool design.
"We are going to build such swimming pools all over the country: Shoigu told KP. "We have already tested them: they are cheap and excellent in every way." Putin opened the conference on the government sports programme on an upbeat note:
"More than 22 million Russians regularly play sports. The number grows by 1% every year. The percentage among children and teenagers is even higher, more than a third. Impressive figures..." Upon hearing these words Sport Minister Vitaly Mutko and Education Minister Andrei Fursenko exchanged glances and were about to shake each other's hands. But they checked themselves just in time. "But we should not be overly optimistic," Vladimir Putin continued. "In neighbouring Finland 70% of the population go in for sports..." In the Vladimir Region, Putin looked at the local governor, Vinogradov, only 18% play sports."
The governor and the sport minister shook their heads despondently.
"We should create conditions in the near future for at least 40 million people to do sports regularly," Putin said sternly. "It is all about the health of the nation, the development of our main competitive advantage, the human capital."
Who knows, I thought, perhaps the way things are going we may soon overtake Finland...
Alexander Gamov
