Vladimir Putin’s comments regarding participants' speeches

On musical preferences

Vladimir Putin: I like Russian music. It often played at home when I was younger. I also like light classical music, popular classical music and jazz.

On drinking problems

Vladimir Putin: There is one priest who I see from time to time. He has recently joined an agricultural project – well, not personally, but he supported farm production somewhere in the Moscow Region. I asked him, “Father, you built a church there first thing, didn’t you?” He said “No. I built a prison.”

Remark: Why?

Vladimir Putin: That was my question too, because I was taken aback. He said that they locked the drunks in there. At first, people were shocked, although it was not a real prison, but later they supported the idea. In reality, the alcohol abuse rate in the area decreased. Once people felt how much more effective they were when sober, they got different results, began to earn more, and the quality of their lives improved.

On roads

Vladimir Putin: About roads – you know that we have continued our federal support programme for road construction in the regions, including big regional cities. But we have also taken another, more important decision – mainly for rural areas and towns. Our decision was to make the regions spend 5% of their reinstated road funds for rural road construction projects and another 5% for roads in municipal centres. I very much expect that people will see a difference soon.

Remark: I can’t wait to see it. Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: These funds – resources – will be far greater than the financial assistance earlier provided by the federal government. We estimate the new funding at about 160 billion roubles, up from the previous 50 billion.

On sports development

Vladimir Putin: We will be working on two programmes. Mr Medvedev and I will make parallel, mutually complementing efforts. Sports development is a task on the national scale. Speaking of parallel efforts, I mean high-performance sports – supporting our Olympic athletes and national teams – and sports at the grassroots level.

Grassroots sports are certainly the responsibility of the Ministry of Sports and Youth Policy. They have drawn up a programme for developing sports facilities across Russia, which has the impressive support of the federal budget, not to mention the United Russia-sponsored programme that you are certainly familiar with – the 1,000 Sports and Fitness Centres programme that Boris Gryzlov often mentions. We have moved on to a similar programme to build swimming pools. Many football pitches have been built. It is a large and balanced programme. One of its key components is to support children’s and youth sports, to reinstate children’s and youth public training centres.

On army service

Vladimir Putin: Dmitry Medvedev and I have also served, though not for long. We were both artillery men, we had the same military profession. <…>

A decision was made long ago whereby if hot spots appear, mainly contract soldiers would be sent there. <…> As President Medvedev said, this is quite costly for the state. A contract volunteer army is very expensive.

On maternity capital and birth certificates

Vladimir Putin: This programme will not go on indefinitely. You have to hurry. Follow Marina’s example: the more children she has given birth to, the more beautiful she has become. So there is no time to waste, girls.

As regards the certificate, the President was right: we have allocated 19 billion roubles a year over three years. The deputies have included that amount as part of budget expenditures over the next three years. Twenty five percent of those entitled to maternity capital have already taken advantage of it. This is going on very actively.

 On support of families, including those with children with disabilities

Vladimir Putin: Many regions are paying directly. The sum varies… It isn’t much of course, up to 400 roubles on average, but in some regions the amount is significant.

Remark: Kaluga will be paying 2,000 roubles starting from January.

Vladimir Putin: In St Petersburg it is between 2,500 and 4,000 roubles.

Remark: But that’s St Petersburg and Moscow.

Vladimir Putin: There are other forms of support as well – creating conditions for keeping children at home, opening family upkeep centres and taking part in the barrier-free environment project. And of course the schools should provide conditions in which children with disabilities can study together with their peers and learn to adapt themselves to their environment. We all know that where this is being done… You know, people often say that children are cruel. But children are also kind. Where disabled children study alongside their peers, almost everywhere – I am not aware of any negative examples – the children are very responsive, they carry their wheelchair-bound peers in their arms and so on, they help them in every way. It is an edifying experience for both sides. This is very important, and the regions must play the key role in it, I repeat, the key role.

On family values, society’s attitude towards women and support for single mothers

Vladimir Putin: As I have said already, I was once brought some documents from the Tver Region archives and I looked up where my ancestors had lived. They lived in the same village for 300 years, went to the same church, generation after generation. Life is different now, things are changing: people move, working conditions are different, and so on. But of course, family values need to be preserved. However, I absolutely agree with you: life is complicated and diverse and if things have not turned out well for a family, it a family has fallen apart, this is a decision for two adults. First of all, they must be honest with their children and with each other, and they must be responsible. Second, and I think you would all agree with me, we should do everything we can to change the attitude of society towards women who for whatever reason – which is by no means always the woman’s fault – have been left alone with their children. Society and the state must fundamentally change their attitude towards these women. We have thought about and discussed this, and of course, special attention must be paid to helping these women who have been left alone with their children. They are beneficiaries of all the support programmes, of course, but when a woman is alone that is often not enough. Let us think together about what else can be done.

<…>Next year the federal budget will pay an extra 10 billion roubles to those regions that work persistently in this area (opening new kindergartens). If a woman is alone, what can she do? She has no one with whom to leave her child. We have to keep this in mind so that she can get back to work sooner.   

On women's pay

Vladimir Putin: I’m looking at the statistics for European countries.

Remark: Things seem really bad over there.

Vladimir Putin: Not everything is bad there, no. For women’s average wages, though, they are indeed considerably lower than those of their male counterparts, even in leading European economies. This is what the figures suggest.

On separate schools and kindergartens for boys and girls 

Vladimir Putin: As for the idea of creating separate schools and kindergartens based on gender, I consider this practice to be totally counter-productive, and I believe it would lead to imbalances in children’s education.