The message reads:

"Dear Mr Shemyakin,

Please accept my warmest wishes on your 70th birthday.

Success and international recognition have come to you as well-deserved rewards for your many years of hard work and your shining talent. Your original creative ideas, which became the "new word" in modern art, were way ahead of their time in many respects. And they were brilliantly realised in pictures and monuments which are considered among the best works in the collections of famous museums. They serve as bright architectural markers in Russian and foreign cities.

I wish you health, luck and inspiration."

Dmitry Medvedev