Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Mr Yakemenko, your agency has to address some very difficult issues. The Agency for Youth Affairs must formulate the government policies that we call youth policies. I don't think that we've made any breakthroughs in this area recently, although the agency has already celebrated its first birthday even if it has not been around for very long. Overall, youth policy is not just hosting events like the one to which you invited me - and they really are very well organised; nothing bad to say here - but also keeping track of how the interests of young people are reflected in legislation and the work of various official bodies and regional authorities. And as we all know, young people are, after all, a vulnerable group; I mean, they are just starting their lives and their careers and need support, naturally.

Based on your experience from the last year and a half, how would you assess the situation today? What are your priorities for the near future? Right now I'm not going to talk about what has been done, but what you consider priorities for the near future.

Vasily Yakemenko: Mr Putin, for our own purposes we customarily group young people into two very important categories - troubled adolescents in difficult life situations, and, on the other hand, gifted youth. And if you will allow me to...

Vladimir Putin: Excuse me, but troubled adolescents can also be gifted.

Vasily Yakemenko: That's true. A gifted young person can also find himself or herself in a difficult life situation, and this probably happens frequently. But I would like to start with troubled adolescents. I at one time very cautiously said to you that in our country we have very good, often unparalleled examples of helping young people who find themselves in difficult life situations. One of the most striking examples of this is the New Generation organisation in Petersburg. In the years it has been active, this commercial enterprise has provided employment for 20,000 adolescent first-time offenders, who earned money and did not commit another offence. That's a 92% rehabilitation rate for troubled adolescents.

We have declared this an extremely important priority for ourselves: preventing young people with criminal records from committing another offence and going back to prison, and we are spreading this idea to the regions. It needs to be said that this is, of course, difficult. On the one hand, expanding this business into the regions requires certain funds: 150,000 per adolescent, in spite of the fact that this is a commercial enterprise. But on the other hand, if a young person is sent to prison, the state will spend the same 150,000 to incarcerate him or her without a clear idea of what that will mean for his or her future. We have only really reached an agreement with three regions, and now the only place outside St Petersburg where the project is up and running is Karelia. And on the subject of government assistance, it would be desirable if officials responded to these sorts of problems that troubled adolescents have quickly and understood that this is the major issue.

I'll cite another similar example. Several tens of thousands of young people have been released from prison. The statistics vary somewhat, but sadly around 40% of these young people will commit another crime. This is a huge figure. And now there's another project that's been launched in Yekaterinburg: an employment agency for formerly incarcerated adolescents, where they have a choice of several jobs, those who have nowhere to live are provided with government housing, and so on. This is a project that has yielded some amazing figures for reintegrating young people into society. Basically, there are examples of these problems that troubled adolescents face being solved in various regions of the country, and there are very good examples. But unfortunately, selling these solutions is rather difficult. Here, we certainly need help.

We have also made some progress regarding gifted youth, which I'll briefly describe. We have established a national register, as we call it, for gifted youth, which currently contains 25,000 names in 150 categories. This includes winners of international competitions and young entrepreneurs who paid the most taxes last year. There could also be bloggers with the highest number of visitors to their blogs. We understand the entire range of problems that could prevent these young people from realizing their potential in this country.

Of course, without the active involvement of agencies and regional authorities, it will be very difficult to ensure that all of the conditions have been met for them to remain in Russia and realize their potential. It will be rather difficult to resolve this issue without your support, Mr Putin.

Last year, you visited the forum at Lake Seliger, and Mr Putin, I hope that you will have the opportunity to attend this year as well. Once again, tens of thousands of young people will convene in the hopes of eliminating the obstacles they face. You know that Lake Seliger provides a direct connection with the country's chief government officials and heads of companies, and gives access to advice from experts and educational projects. These are very serious resources. Last year, 28,000 people applied for the session entitled "You, the Entreprenuer", and 5,000 people attended. Five hundred of them launched their own small businesses this year, and I must say that even if these 500 businesses have only been in operation for a year, they have already paid around 200 million roubles in taxes. Also, 400 million roubles were spent on the Zvorinsky project, which supports young people attracted to inventing.

Last year, Mr Putin, you signed agreements (hands documents to Mr Putin) - 11 of which have been implemented and three that unfortunately have not been - two because of bureaucratic problems and one because the young lady herself did not follow through. But, to put it another way, if the officials who should give sufficient consideration to young people resolved issues that come to them quickly, if they responded appropriately and saw this as a priority, I think that the situation could change.

I must say that the quality of projects that young people are presenting is improving with every year. For example, one project to use associated gas attracted investment worth 250 million roubles. There was also the artificial skin project, which you saw at the convention, that was recommended by the Emergencies Ministry for burn clinics. There are many such projects. And so we could really help young people if we could only convince regional agencies and federal officials to pay attention young people's requests and problems.

Vladimir Putin: That was my second question. As a matter of fact, so-called youth policy is implemented not so much through your agency as it is through other ministries and agencies. For example, the demographic programme is essentially orientated towards young people and people of reproductive age. This, in essence, is a large part of youth policy. It's the same with everything that involves housing for young people. It's the same with education. My question is how are your relations with other ministries and agencies, including the Interior Ministry?

Vasily Yakemenko: Mr Putin, we are building perfectly fine, working relations. I should add that we have no desire to take on these programmes, simply because we need more work. After all, we still believe that the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs cannot perform the duties of dozens of agencies. This is why the housing program is being implemented.

Again, all of the programmes for troubled adolescents that I mentioned are being implemented in conjunction with the Interior Ministry - every one of these programmes. These programmes would be impossible without their involvement. The same goes for the Education Ministry - we are working in close contact with them. Another issue is if there are instances where we see that funds should be spent according to the priorities set by you or the president, then we try to get involved. Also, there are funds from development institutions, and we understand that these funds should be spent on just any projects - scientific projects, technical projects or any other type project. They should be disbursed to specific people as part of a certain strategy, under specific contracts from state corporations. We still see it as our job to work with other government bodies to spend the funds that exist for programmes more accurately and more efficiently, if I understand it correctly.

Vladimir Putin: And have you had the opportunity to draw up your own proposals for working with these ministries and agencies?

Vasily Yakemenko: We have had the opportunity to draw up our own proposals. Yes, we work on issues when we deem it necessary; all the more so since we have direct agreements with those ministries and federal agencies that are our key partners.

Vladimir Putin: It seems to me that this line of endeavour could be very important because you have direct contact with a specific group of people, with young people. You even have a more, perhaps, subtle understanding of what is going on with them, and in my view, it would be appropriate if the relevant agencies working together would take your views into account in planning their youth policy work, and if you had the opportunity to intelligently expound these views in detail, let's say within the context of preparations for the next budgetary cycle.