Mintimer Shaimiev: «Timely warm words, sympathy, moral support can work wonders»

President of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev recently visited Radio Mayak to take part in the radio programme “People and Authorities”. During the conversation, he spoke on a broad range of issues including the implementation of priority national projects, endorsement of a power-sharing agreement, upcoming elections to the State Duma and hurricane consequences. But some interesting questions were left unanswered due to the time limits of the radio programme. Tatar-inform asked Mintimer Shaimiev some questions that hadn’t sounded on the radio.

Dear Mr. Shaimiev, tell us please in detail about the program of training young scientists and specialists from the Republic of Tatarstan abroad. Is it planned to continue this program?

Ilshat, 23 years old, Boston

In the past years, we have managed to bring contacts with leading educational centers in Europe and Northern America to a qualitatively higher level. There are serious prerequisites that the republic will join the European common educational space, also known as the Bologna process.

In my opinion, one of our most important goals is to give quality education to youth, to reveal active young people, as it is our potential. We are implementing a large-scale project of giving government grants to the gifted youth, which, I would say, is a unique one for Russia. About 60 million rubles are apportioned annually from the budget for these purposes, starting from the last year.

As for scientific centers in our country, we mainly send young specialists to Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tomsk. The special part of the program - education abroad - is connected with leading universities in Great Britain, USA, Germany, France and Switzerland. Today, nearly 100 young people have completed their education abroad and become highly qualified specialists. Most of them got offers from the leading higher educational institutions in the republic - they will become post-graduates, the rest have started to work at large plants and organizations.

This year, almost 700 students and post-graduates competed for the grant of the republic’s government. They had to withstand the serious competition: they demonstrated the results of their research works, participated in international conferences, developed projects by requests of enterprises. The result was a rating list comprising more than 70 students for education abroad and 170 students for study in the Russian higher education institutions. Our students that got education abroad are studying the most innovative disciplines that will become the basis for high technologies in the future.

It is, in the first place, connected with the development of nanotechnologies, i.e. with the science of the future.

I would like to note that we also attract foreign students to our republic. In the last academic year, students from more than 60 foreign countries as well as countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States studied here.

Dear President Shaimiev, you have two sons. Do you regret not having a daughter in your family?

Elena Viktorovna, St. Petersburg

Instead, I have two granddaughters. My elder granddaughter Kamila goes to the Institute for International Relations in Moscow. My younger granddaughter has turned 10 years old this year. I can say about both of them: they justify my hopes so far - studying well.

In general, I regret having few children. I often repeat: one child is not a child, two children is a half child and three children is a child…Taking into consideration the demographic situation in our country and the attention devoted to this issue at federal level, I think that this saying is as topical as never before. I am sure that as the well-being of citizens will get better, people will have means and desire to have as many children as possible.

Mintimer Sharipovich, 2007 was designated to be the Year of Charity in Tatarstan. Do you think we are getting more charitable?

Over the half year, not only material support has been given to the indigent, a more sympathetic attitude to their fates has started to develop in the society. The perception itself has changed, there are fewer indifferent people. By the way, it is one of the key goals of the Year of Charity. The current year will end, but it should not mean that charity will end with it. Having declared the Year of Charity, we wanted to give a certain impulse not only to instilling moral values, but also to practice.

I will give an example. Before that, aid to the needy was often badly organized. Someone felt the need to help, but didn’t know what exactly is required in this or that case and who exactly needs this help. The result was that one received much, even not needing it already, and the other didn’t get anything. It was wrong, so we decided to coordinate this work and create the single register of benefactors and those who need aid, i.e. to define conditionally “demand” and “supply” and to bring them together. The register is regularly updated and we intend to use it actively further on. It is a normal practice.

One more example is aid to disabled people. The best support for disabled people that are capable of doing some work is not one-time charity actions, but providing conditions for them to earn by their own work. Now this issue is being actively discussed with heads of our large enterprises.

On the whole, I want to say that, despite the difficulties of the transition period, there has appeared a class of people that have means to give support to the needy in our society. And not only material one. Timely warm words, sympathy, moral support can work wonders. The growth of well-being must be accompanied with the progressing kind attitude to each other. If everyone begins to think about it, we will all become kinder.

Damir from Izhevsk: “We visited Kazan recently and admired its sports facilities - a new ice arena, Basket-hall and others. Are there any plans to build anything else like this?

Yes, we are currently building a wrestling palace. There is no palace of this kind anywhere else - a powerful wrestling palace for all kinds of strength competitions and sport games. Now we are planning to build one more 50-metre long swimming pool, because we are water polo champions of the Russian Federation and claim to win European medals. Many our teams in a number of sports have already become domestic champions. In Russian hockey, we have alternating success so far, but conditions have been provided - we have two up-to-date stadiums. In field hockey, there are no teams equal to ours. A covered football and athletics arena and the Field Hockey Centre will be opened in August. A very good centre for our basketball players has appeared in the countryside. Works on the construction of the Tennis Centre have begun.

At present, 22 ice arenas with artificial ice have been built in cities and districts of the republic. We are actively progressing: the European Field Hockey Championship among male teams will be held in Kazan in September and in the following year the same arena will host a pre-Olympic qualification tournament among women. The next year will be very rich in international tournaments: a Snowboard World Cup round, the Youth Ice Hockey Championship and the Boxing World Championship among students.

We consider the winning of the right to host the European Clay Target Shooting Championship in 2010, achieved in the severe competition, to be a very important victory. We competed for this right with such countries as Finland, Italy and others. And, undoubtedly, the main goal for the nearest year is the preparation of the bid to host the World Summer Universiade in 2013. Sport is the unifying power. In my point of view, it is the only ideology that can unite people all over the globe.

It is July, hot weather outside… Have you had a chance to swim this year?

Stas, the city of Moscow

Actually, I go swimming all the year round; I can’t imagine my day without a swimming pool. My yearly record is 429 kilometers. I say to myself: go into the water, swim, go out and all negative emotions just vanish. I suffer if I didn’t manage to go for a swim.

Besides, I go downhill skiing and I am fond of chess. A person’s brains should be loaded all the time, there shouldn’t be any room for laziness. If a person strives for something, doesn’t indulge himself - it is the best recipe for health.

First of all, I want to greet you from Israel. Secondly, I would like to inform that the first Tatar Sabantuy was held here in the most famous restaurant. Hundreds of people visited it. Guests came from Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Argentina, UK and other countries. More than 10,000 people of your ethnicity live in Israel. We have created the Association “Tatars for Israel”. The president is Zakira Zinnurovna Zaripova. Are you planning to visit Israel?

Ravil, 47 years old, Netania, Israel

Tatars all over the world have been celebrating Sabantuy for several months. In March, it was celebrated in Australia; the Tatar Diaspora has existed there for many years. This year, Sabantuy was celebrated in Egypt for the first time; it was organized by students from our republic. Sabantuy is widely celebrated in Kazakhstan. According to the Decree issued by President of the republic Nursultan Nazarbayev, with whom we have long-standing friendly relations, Sabantuy is a national holiday in that country and it is supported from the budget, as well as Nauruz, a traditional festival for Asian people.

In the Ukraine, the main Sabantuy was celebrated in Kiev. The Festival of the Plough was timed to large events - International Turkic-Tatar Festival “Kiev Sandugachy” and the Festival named after Rashit Vagapov.

Baltic countries, Byelorussia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan - everywhere where there are big Tatar communities, Sabantuy has become the integral part of their life. As to other foreign countries, the plough festival has been celebrated in Czech Republic, Germany, Turkey, Sweden and Finland more than once. We are connected by a special history with each of these countries.

In the USA, America’s Young Tatars, the community of our compatriots, arranged Sabantuy in a suburb of Los Angeles, not far from Hollywood. The American Tatar Association of New York held its Sabantuy for Tatars living at the US eastern coast. People of other nationalities, certainly, participated in these celebrations along with our country fellows. We often hear about the huge interest of local people to Sabantuy.

The fact that Sabantuy is celebrated in Israel is a very good sign for us, as the history of many nations got intertwined at that land. It is very close to Tatarstan, where, as you know, not only followers of two main confessions in our country - Islam and Orthodox Christianity - live in peace and friendship, but also Jews, Lutherans, Catholics and Old Believers.

Thank you for the good news. As for my visit to Israel, I don’t have plans to do it yet.