Dmitry Kozak’s speech at the meeting:

Good afternoon, colleagues. On January 15, the President established the State Commission by executive order. Today we are holding its first meeting. Today’s meeting should not only be organisational. We will address all organisational issues at the end of the meeting, and we will also try to discuss the substantive issues related to preparations for the Olympics, which are entering their final stage. In just a few days, it will be exactly a year until the Olympic Games. And again I want to remind you of what I’ve said repeatedly – the Olympics start on February 7, 2014 at exactly 8 p.m., not a minute later. We must do everything to make this happen, and make sure we are fully prepared to host this major event.

The final stage of construction started today. This marks the beginning of the active phase of our work to prepare for the Olympic Games and all activities related to the Olympic Games. And there are many such activities. In terms of Olympic facilities, almost all of the sport infrastructure and facilities supporting their operation (and there are quite a lot of different facilities: energy, transport, infrastructure) – they have either been fully completed and commissioned or are 100 per cent ready to host full-scale international, Olympic-level sports competitions and the test events that will take place in February and March 2013. A control system has been installed and we need to monitor its performance during these competitions with the utmost care. There will be intense time pressure during the Olympic Games, and while this currently stretches out for two months, during the Olympics it will be compressed into a few weeks. There will be a lot of simultaneous competitions with many athletes and tens of thousands of Russian and foreign visitors who will need travel services, accommodation and other types of services.

Important and complex issues related to completing the main hotel infrastructure, and a number of energy facilities – which absolutely must be completed – remain for the current year. We have not definitively resolved the issue of reliable power supply for the facilities due to the fact that not all the generating units are operational. We have confidence that they will be completed, and we need a specific plan of action from all government agencies, all utility companies – power generating and power grid companies – in order to ensure a 100 per cent secure energy supply for both the Olympic Games and the city.

We need to address the reliability of infrastructure and communications. Communications services providers are also not fully ready, and everything is being worked through literally just in time to run the test events today. We currently have no doubts that all the material resources and physical infrastructure for the Olympic Games will be built. Given the problems that have been identified above, I very much hope that literally in the coming days and weeks, we will be able to make the necessary decisions and gain more confidence – in this case, I mean power supply, first and foremost – and everything will operate normally.

Today, we need to segue into preparing for the Olympics. This large-scale public event, which requires maximum concentration from everyone – it is not coincidental that practically all federal agencies are represented in the commission – executive bodies at the federal level, the regional government and particularly the authorities of the Olympic host city, so that all management bodies are ready to act in all situations.

Management, as they say, is the art of foresight. We should simulate any emergency situations that could arise, in order for us to coordinate the functioning of the control system and develop the material resources necessary to deal with any problems in emergency situations. These should be defined now during the test events and public events on the eve of the Games. They need to be developed, tested and ready for any situation by February 7, 2014. Whatever happens, when there is a mass influx of people, when these issues need to be resolved for a high volume of visitors, we need to make sure we don’t have to change some rules of conduct and have to hunt for resources and people to resolve issues related to emergency situations.

All government agencies face these challenges, since they will have to resolve issues related to accommodation, food, travel and visa support services. The Foreign Ministry has an extremely important task – advance outreach in all countries explaining the rules for entry and exit in Russia, and we need to create a work plan for this today. We need such clarification in order to avoid critical situations where temporary consular stations are working in crisis mode to process visas for various individuals. We will have a lot of government officials, dignitaries, entourages, athletes, members of the Olympic family, and so on. And such situations currently come up all the time during the test events.

If yesterday we had a problem with five air crew members who arrived here without a visa, then during the Olympics, if we do not carry out the necessary work, perhaps 500 people will simultaneously arrive without a visa, and we will be forced to hastily resolve these issues. We should keep these crisis cases to a minimum.

Health care issues, issues related to the entire service sector – we must recruit and train the necessary personnel for all existing and new facilities. This work is ongoing and it needs be completed. An important task for the Education Ministry – the Education Ministry is implementing a plan – and the city authorities is to make sure that all the personnel who we recently recruited are trained, tested during the various events and retained. We need to see that they actually can provide hospitable service, so that our country is properly represented before our foreign guests, and so that our country enjoys higher tourist traffic after the Olympics.

The competencies of Commission members present here cover all activities. Soon all that was set aside in the period of construction will come to the fore, and we have to work out all the scenarios for our actions. And Russia needs to get excellent marks for this exam, which we will have to take during the Olympics. This is necessary not only for the three-week sporting event, but we need to learn how to work in such conditions all the time. And the higher the score, the better we will pass this test, the higher the quality of the Olympic legacy for the whole country – in Sochi, the capital of the Olympic Games, and in the country as a whole.

I propose that we get down to work. Today, we will decide arrangements for structuring the Commission’s operations, and it will run in this mode until the end of the Olympic Games. We will form the Commission Presidium, which will resolve operational issues. Clearly, in this format, in a representative structure, the Commission cannot convene often and resolve operational issues. However, the Commission will hold quarterly and monthly meetings to hear reports on the implementation of those plans approved by the Commission, and the Commission Presidium will address operational issues primarily for the duration of the Olympic Games. I want us to reach a point in our joint work where all the ministers present here do not have to solve operational issues during the Olympics, so they can be spectators, all the work is done in a normal mode and emergency situations are minimal.

Let’s get to work. We have 19 items on the agenda today. All materials on the agenda were distributed in advance, and I hope that everyone was able to read these materials, and we can very quickly make all the necessary decisions without lengthy reports, in order for the Commission to be able to continue its practical work outside this meeting.