Mintimer Shaimiev: ‘We must change ourselves and the country and republic will change along with us’

In his interview to Kazan magazine, Mintimer Shaimiev recollects about the Soviet times, the collapse of the USSR and political and economic reforms in the two last decades, and also speaks on the problems and prospects for the development of the republic in modern conditions.

Dear Mintimer Sharipovitch, your life as the life of any big politician can be estimated in two dimensions: historical or ordinary human one. Certainly, they both are inseparable and visible to all. And still you are famous, first of all, as the first President of the Republic of Tatarstan, a statesman who has weight in Russia and all over the world. And I would like to get to know more about your inner world, to hear from you about those personality traits, without which it is impossible to gain people’s trust and, eventually, achieve what you managed to achieve. So the magazine hopes to get answers from you not only as a politician and statesman, but just as a contemporary, the man who crossed the turn of two centuries, and in which of them your life is interesting and fruitful.

Evgeny Evtushenko, poet and publicist, once said: “the main thing in human life is to choose what to do not by situation, but by moral determinant that can be called ‘conscience’ for short”. A dialogue with conscience is the most difficult for any person. How has your conversation with it been going?

Evgeny Evtushenko, being a very talented person, determined the problem very precisely: any person sooner or later encounters an incredibly difficult choice, when he should decide what to be guided with in an important act - with his beliefs and moral principles or try to reach the goal at any cost. Making a deal, so to speak, with your conscience in the latter case, as if saying to it: ‘I will deviate from you for a while, but then make up for it and do even more’. But here the claw gets stuck and the whole bird is caught! What’s done can be undone, you will have to regret about such deal all your life. But there is also one more danger: unwilling to compromise, the person will not be able to get along well with other people and will not reach the desired result. We live in a society with a variety of interests and we should be able to agree with people. All the more, the world and people in it are changing.

So, it is a very difficult question for any person and there can’t be a simple answer to it. Everyone seeks this answer throughout all his life, observing the acts of other people or acquainting himself, for example, with literature, theatre and film characters. They teach us to be honest and conscientious. For example, Chekhov’s Dyadya Vanya (Uncle Vanya) or Pierre Bezukhov from “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy. These are deep dramatic images of sympathetic, honest people craving for justice. But, as you know, real life is more complicated even than great literature works. Pierre Bezukhov, though he is in the thick of real historical events, acts in the conditions created by the author. The logic of the development of the character dictates his actions, but still “the rules of the game” are determined by the author and, eventually, he decides whether the character will save the purity of his soul or sell his soul to the devil. And in real life everyone of us should decide for himself. And the bigger is the circle of people that depends on you, the more difficult it is to make a choice, including a moral one, the harder it is to save dignity, conscience, finding solutions to the most difficult problems. It concerns, first of all, politicians and statesmen, because the price of their decisions, right or wrong, is high. When they make mistakes, many people are hurt.

Perhaps, the main principle you should follow and what I have always tried to do is to stay yourself in any situation. Stay the person that nature, parents and environment have made of you. In the village, where I was born, there were simple precepts: don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t say rude things, respect older people, help them. All this, soaked up, as they say, with mother’s milk, along with parents’ example made the moral core – the most reliable and for the entire life.

Certainly, solving this or that large problem compromises are necessary and inevitable. I have said more than once that the policy of Tatarstan’s government is characterized with pragmatism. It doesn’t mean though that we are like a weather-cock: turn when the wind blows. Just the other way round. There is strategy and there is tactics. Pragmatism in this case means adequate reactions to the needs of life, demands of the time. Manoeuvring, but pursuing the precise course of the ship is the most fruitful policy. And if you manage to preserve your own moral core at the same time, you have the strength of mind to do many things.

It is very important for a politician and statesman.

Yes, but I believe it is important for any person to stay in harmony with yourself, with your conscience. It is the inner victory or the state of mind, I would say. I don’t know, probably the fortune saved me from such circumstances, when life would drive me into a corner and force me to make a deal with my conscience. But I am happy that, on the whole, I have nothing to reproach myself with.

I speak unambiguously, looking back on all my life, and it is not important what heights I have achieved as a leader and politician. My life path could have been different, but anyway I would feel very pleased that I try to walk along it with dignity.

Which of the 17 years of your being the head of Tatarstan and, before that, wild years of perestroika were the most difficult and left a deeper imprint in your memory than others?

There were no simple years at all. I don’t think that it was easier for leaders at different levels before the collapse of the Soviet Union as well. Maybe, the choice between acts by conscience and acts by situation at that time was even more difficult. I wasn’t the head of the republic at that time though, I formed for so high position at the wave of perestroika. But my eyes could see! This is why I felt perestroika at once. Like poets who sensitively feel and accept new trends with all their heart, for example, Vladimir Mayakovsky or Khadi Taktash at the threshold of the events of 1917 promising freedom, Gabdulla Tukai during the revolution of 1905. They all were waiting for changes and for me, perestroika was like a fresh clearing wind. But I couldn’t even imagine that so radical changes would occur in the country, one more revolution would happen. I thought that the bloody war was gone and our generation would do without upheavals. However, problems were accumulating and made people suffer inner disorder when they saw a gap between beautiful slogans and reality. Not to mention earlier periods of repressions. My father worked as the head of the collective farm all his life. And if someone was to be arrested as “an enemy of the people” or a saboteur in the village, people from certain bodies came at night to the chairman of the village council and often took the head of the collective farm out of bed as well. And they had to go.

Yes, but what else they could do. They couldn’t change anything at that time.

Absolutely. They didn’t denounce, someone else grassed, and in some room it was decided to arrest some person. And I can’t reproach my father, he himself hardly escaped being arrested due to his small power as well as deputies of councils that lacked civil rights. My father was sued for alleged squandering of the collective farm’s seed-stock and he just wanted to help people. Fortunately, there were people then who stood for the truth and the case was closed.

The form, the procedure was observed; the outward appearance of legality was created. And it was so everywhere – from Moscow to the remote areas of the country. Millions denounced and millions of innocent citizens were sent to prison or shot.

Working at the regional committee of the Communist Party, I witnessed the condemnation of Gayaz Iskhaky at the bureau of the regional committee. This famous author and publicist, outstanding leader of national movement, whose works we are studying more deeply now and estimate his merits, his vision of Tatarstan as a state at their true worth, and he dreamt about it caring about the preservation of his nation, language and traditions. How many things this man did for the well-being of his nation! Maybe, not all leaders of the regional committee knew about it, but the secretary for ideology and other educated ideological workers most likely were aware of the merits of Gayaz Iskhaky, when they brought in the verdict of guilty. Certainly, they were forced to do it.

The examples like this are numerous. I could never put up with the fact that the fates of people were often determined by a phone call. I heard a lot about it from my father. And it was continued after the war. At the sittings of the regional committee, decisions were not always taken impartially and freedom-loving or initiative workers suffered in the first turn: they didn’t fit in the common line held by the party. This is the reason why it was a hard time for leaders and members of the bureau of the regional committee: not all of them were heartless, they also suffered inner disharmony. Having become the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the republic, I was a member of the bureau of the regional committee and sometimes felt very dissatisfied with the results of the sittings. I sometimes didn’t agree, stood my ground, though it was risky: despite the feeling that the changes were about to come, the party still held the power very strongly.

It was an iron hoop that pressed the country together until it became red-hot from the citizens’ discontent, got weak and fell to pieces…

Another comparison is possible here: the chased animal gets exhausted, but becomes especially dangerous, it is difficult to agree with it. The same was with the party. It was very difficult to change the mentality of many party leaders in those times. I will never forget the hardest conversation that I had to conduct being the first secretary of the regional committee of the Communist Party. Perestroika was in full swing then and the slogan “All power to Councils!” rolled across the country as the decuman wave. The party that monopolized everything and didn’t have any rivals appeared to be helpless and lost its control over the situation. I came to the conclusion that it was high time to choose whether to stake on the party as the governing power or share power with Councils. I was for the latter. I talked it over with members of the bureau, not all supported me. First Secretaries of regional committees, city committees, experienced and authoritative people gathered, and I had become First Secretary of the regional committee only six months ago. I told them: “We shouldn’t repeat along with the entire country that all power must belong to Councils, not sharing this power with anyone at the same time”.

Then I announced about my choice: to stay the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Tatarstan and someone else was to be elected the Secretary of the regional committee at the plenum. I offered everyone to make up their minds for fifteen days and stressed that I didn’t insist on the same decision as mine. 70 percent of those people decided to head Councils, the rest preferred to stay party leaders. Many who chose Councils thanked me afterwards. But it was afterwards. And during that conversation heavy oppressing atmosphere was in the hall. Some viewed me as an apostate, nearly a betrayer, though neither I, nor my supporters didn’t betray the party. We made the choice dictated by the time. It was the turning point of the history and it was really a choice by situation. And everyone dealt with his conscience in his own way. I have never regretted about my choice.

First President of Russia Boris Yeltsin had to make the same choice when he publicly laid his party-membership card on the table. With time many followed him, but it happened when the party had lost its power already. And at that time, one should have had the courage to do it.

Absolutely! And, by the way, I was the first to come to Boris Yeltsin after he had left the session of the Communist Party Congress at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses and publicly bidden his farewell to the party. In about forty minutes after that I came to him after leaving the session. The matter of fact is that he was the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russia and I had an appointment with him after the session of the congress. So I headed for the meeting. Boris Yeltsin accepted me. He paced the floor and was very agitated. I tried to say something comforting. Yeltsin answered: “Mintimer (he always called me this way), I am feeling so hard. I have been serving this party all my life. But it is wrong to live this way, do you understand?” He said it very sincerely. In general, this large-scale person was very sincere. Certainly I didn’t speak about any matters at that, one might say, historical moment. And for Boris Yeltsin it was the moment of the hardest inner choice, just as for the person…

Many felt that we couldn’t continue to live in the same way. This is why the majority of people in the country started to gulp the air of arising freedom. It made us fearless. It became much easier to balance your inner state with what you had to do. During the first years of perestroika we gained courage and the feeling of confidence. Yes, I will say frankly today, nearly the feeling of impunity.

But we were not irresponsible. By that time I had gained much experience in party and economic work, I had been a member of the Government for many years and I just couldn’t think and act irresponsibly. Courage appeared as a result of the analysis of the complicated processes that were happening in the society. This is why we confidently took even the most important decisions. But, looking back on it now, I am still amazed at our courage in those days.

It is understandable, as the way to changes was blocked by the huge state machine, many mechanisms of which were launched during Stalin’s regime.

But it was opposed by a more powerful force of awakened people and the latter started to sweep away everything that embodied the regime of that time. The entire staffs of the Bureaus of Communist party regional committees resigned. It happened, for example, to the bureau of the regional committee of the Volgograd region that was headed by Vladimir Kalashnikov, a very competent leader in all respects, who I knew also as the Minister of Melioration and Water Industry of RSFSR. Many other party committees didn’t manage to stand up. And in Tatarstan the bureau of the regional committee survived. Maybe because I had started to work as the first secretary there not long ago. I became the first secretary in new conditions, I was chosen in two rounds of voting!

From a historical viewpoint, little time has passed since then, but now several real candidates for elections are considered to be a natural thing, nobody can imagine that it can be different, otherwise who to choose from? And at that time it was a considerable step to democracy that you, being the party leader of the republic, were the first to take in the country. Before that, the leaders of the executive committees had been nominated.

Exactly. The candidature was preliminarily agreed with the Political Bureau (Politburo) of the Communist Party’s Central Committee and then proposed for election at the plenary session of the executive committee, the members of which, as a rule, voted for it unanimously. And I was presented to the Politburo only after I had been elected.

During the first years of perestroika, the renewal of the society was natural, life itself demanded it. As for Tatarstan’s state system, we haven’t invented any artificial constructions, we, the leaders of the republic, primarily had to react to the events happening in the country. It wouldn’t be right to say that we foresaw everything and thus acted in this or that way. Certainly, we knew that such public figures as Mirsaid Sultan-Galiyev and Mullanur Vakhitov dreamt, thought and tried to do something for the republic to get a real state system, and Sakhibgarey Said-Galiyev can also be viewed differently in this respect. Many sons of the Tatar nation paved the way for the sovereignty of Tatarstan. But in several years after the revolution of 1917, these attempts were quickly suppressed. We had a chance to respond to the challenge of the time and it was the most difficult thing.

Then the national intelligentsia (intellectuals) that had been strong in the republic for centuries started to advocate making changes. It had not been by chance that so many people had been subject to repressions: the regime was afraid, first of all, of thinking people. More and more our residents started to support the idea of Tatarstan’s sovereignty. And one couldn’t but agree with them: only one school teaching in the Tatar language had been left in Kazan, the people turned out to be on the verge of the loss of their native language and culture. People who were ignorant of it could perceive the speeches of the Tatar intelligentsia as manifestations of nationalism, but can people be blamed for their wish to save their mother tongue, their many-century culture? And can it be compared to the slogans and stunts of some present-day youth groups that, allegedly speaking on behalf of the Russian people, do harm, first of all, to the people themselves? These things are really alarming, as well as the extremism of people of any ethnicity.

And in those times the desperate call for action in Tatarstan wasn’t directed against any other nation and the republic authorities responded to it. The Russian Federation that had had hardly any rights in the USSR declared its sovereignty. Tatarstan that also lacked rights being part of Russia didn’t hesitate to adopt its Declaration on State Sovereignty. Our republic has always been a pioneer, a leader in all key matters in Russia and we couldn’t but take this step that turned out to be justified, as time showed. Being an immediate participant of all important political forums and other events in the country, my companions and I took all not easy decisions absolutely consciously. Maybe I lacked experience, but I followed my political intuition that didn’t let me down either then or later. Now, I suppose I can say about myself as a politician: I appeared to be at the right place at the right moment.

At last the time came when it became possible to take decisions based upon inner motives, and some inner call did not contradict the conscience, but on the contrary inspired us. We saw the opportunity to organize life upon fair grounds. And the viewpoints of the leaders of the republic were adjusted, despite the presence of opposite opinions in the society, or rather thanks to the fact that we listened attentively to each of them. We had a very complicated parliament then: numerous representatives of the Tatar national movement acted actively, federalists didn’t yield to them, I mean those who were for saving the existing relations between the federal centre and the republic without any principal changes. I had to follow carefully their hot disputes and, eventually, interfere in them and take optimal decisions with their assistance through conciliation. The contribution of the parliamentarians of that time into the formation of the modern state system of Tatarstan was very considerable. Their personal interest in the better future of the republic helped them act constructively and reasonably in all things on the whole.

Yes, disputes reached boiling point, but all sincerely wanted changes, though had different views on the future.

You are absolutely right. It was very important to prevent these disputes from boiling over. Today’s high reputation of Tatarstan that we are rightfully proud of is linked a lot to the fact that we managed to save peace between nations and confessions and it attracts all in our country and outside the Russian Federation. They are interested in Tatarstan, not because it struck someone: there is experience of tolerance, let’s study it. But because necessity demands it. It appears to be possible to organize the life of people of different ethnicities so that they live in peace in a big republic.

Even those political forces that look at Russia somewhat suspiciously or want to create a not very attractive image of it can’t but see the constructive results of our work when they familiarize themselves with the experience of Tatarstan. And they find answers to questions that trouble them, in developed countries as well.

You participated in the hard negotiations in Novo-Ogarevo, where the politicians made attempts to save the united country. I understand that history doesn’t have the conjunctive mood, it cannot be changed, but still: if the leaders of the USSR and different political forces had been determined to find solutions, could the collapse of the USSR have been prevented or it was inevitable?

I am absolutely sure: the Soviet Union was destroyed due to a big desire to save it. People who organized the putsch (in August, 1991) were devoted to the country, they adhered to the ideology of the powerful USSR, wanted to prevent the dissolution of the Soviet Union at any cost. They were not incidental people, but respectful leaders of the country and you shouldn’t view them only as an odious group of plotters. The situation mustn’t be simplified. The Novo-Ogarevo process was going on, and it was the process of mutual concessions of the Soviet republics, we were seeking the ways to save the country by giving considerable independence to the Soviet republics, wanted to create the Union of Free Republics, there was a proposal to call it SSR. And at the same time well-known events were happening in the Baltic republics and Tbilisi.

Where digging tools were used against unarmed protesters…

Yes, sadly, blood was shed in some places. The biggest concern about the situation in the country was expressed by Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR Anatoly Lukyanov, Minister of Defence Dmitry Yazov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Nikolai Ryzhkov and some other leaders. Especially persistent was Chairman of the National Security Committee Vladimir Kryuchkov, he was well aware of the situation and saw in which direction the things were going. All these people urged others to save the country, proposed the ways to do it.

Mikhail Sergeyevitch (Gorbachev) probably found the proposed methods unacceptable. Certainly, his personal qualities had an influence on his taking decisions. Usually he gently postponed taking decisions on the sharpest questions and offered to discuss them separately. And it was very difficult to take the only right decisions, because for him, like for a majority of citizens, the development of the events was unexpected in many respects. He wanted to make the perestroika peacefully, he did not mean to destroy the country, but its dissolution began when “the process started” and it was the process itself that led it to such result.

By the way, the attempt to reduce the role of the monopoly party was first made by Nikita Khrushchev, but conditions hadn’t been created for it then. And by the end of the 1980s, the world had changed, had become more open. And people had come to understand what Andrei Sakharov, for example, struggled for. But in the beginning, few could comprehend why three-time Hero of Socialist Labour, laureate of Lenin and State Prizes surrounded with honour and respect, suddenly started to speak about human rights. The society matured! Mikhail Gorbachev chanced to lead the country in the conditions where everything was developing at an accelerated pace.

We discussed the issues concerning the preparation of the Treaty of Alliance at the new Federation Council where the leaders of the soviet and autonomous republics had been accepted. It was my proposal. When heated disputes about the future of the country broke out at the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR, I got up on the rostrum, though Mikhail Sergeyevitch being the moderator hadn’t given me the floor. But he was forced to place my proposal to the vote: I insisted, didn’t leave the rostrum. And suddenly the audience voted for. Probably they liked how passionately a relatively young man insisted on the observance of interests of Tatarstan and other republics. This is how the 71st article of the Constitution of the USSR was changed and the Federation Council – the body that started to play partially the role of the Security Council, Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and Politburo – was formed.

Then the leaders of some soviet republics and I started to speak about the necessity to share powers between the centre and republics and introduce a single-channel budget: we collect funds, pay according to the standards for the powers realized by the centre and the rest is ours. It was we who proposed such approach and the term itself, however there had been cases of the single-channel budget in the world practice. Certainly, frankly speaking, it does not strengthen the unity of the big country. But such scheme is possible for a certain period. Besides, at that time the oil price was not as it is now, 70 dollars per barrel, but just 9-12 dollars. And life urged to think about economy too, not only about how to settle political problems.

The Treaty of Alliance was initialed without the Ukraine’s participation (the Baltic countries were out of question then). President of the Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk took time-out referring to the absence of the agreement from its parliament. I put my signature on the document about initialing the Treaty of Alliance, but on the condition that Tatarstan would be placed in the text horizontally like Soviet republics, but not vertically below the Russian Federation when the Treaty was concluded. And I also connected the signing of the treaty with the necessity to discuss the future of our republic at the Supreme Soviet.

Mikhail Gorbachev invited me to his office and said: “we won’t make a tragedy of the present situation, Kravchuk will get the agreement of the parliament in October and then we will take the decision about Tatarstan and return to the signing of the Treaty of Alliance”. As you know, during Gorbachev’s holiday there was organized a putsch that accelerated the dissolution of the Soviet Union by means of struggle for its preservation. It gave carte blanche to Boris Yeltsin who was at the height of his popularity in Russia then. This is how it happened. If the Treaty of Alliance had been signed, united Armed Forces and security system would have been preserved and there could have been chances to save the united federal state in the renewed form. The other question is how long it would have survived…

I am telling you about that stormy time and shudder to recollect some moments, and when you participate, live in such events…After those years I often reflected: during revolutions, many people suffered, died, but didn’t think about themselves.

They were enveloped in the fire of revolutions and couldn’t break free of this sacrificial fire.

And we so deeply felt the political heat that couldn’t think about anything else. As if the mission of achieving great goals had seized a strong hold on our minds and gave us enormous strength. It wasn’t easy at all to refuse to sign the Federal Treaty that all districts of the Russian Federation, except Chechnya, signed then. And to bid for the signing of the bilateral agreement between Russia and Tatarstan in 1994. But we found convincing arguments and confirmed their weight with our deeds. The agreement signed by the President of Russia and the President of Tatarstan in 1994 played a great role in the history of the republic and the whole country. This is what most politicians say…

In Karlovy Vary where you have been more than once, there is a bust of Karl Marx at the crossing of paths. They say that once you stopped near the bust and asked where to go. Someone who accompanied you gave you directions, but you reacted: “I didn’t ask You…” I don’t know if it is a true story, but it gives rise to the question about the national idea, or in other words about the national ideology. It was very important during the Soviet period, it existed in the pre-Soviet Russia, and it reveals itself to some degree in modern states. Is the national ideology necessary for modern Russia and Tatarstan? The ideology which is understood and accepted by the society and each individual. Or everyone will choose priorities – job, family, career - for himself and that’s enough?

The story is true. Really, there is a place in Karlovy Vary where, when you ascend the hill, there is a wonderful bust of Karl Marx at its foot at the crossing of several paths.

As for Marx’s teaching, his “Capital”, I think that it suits any social order. The question is who forms the capital and who uses the fruit of the collected capital. The ideology created on Marx’s teaching is very attractive. Is it a bad society where everyone gives for the common good according to his talents and receives according to his needs? It is the ideal organisation of people’s life that many philosophers dreamt about. And Marxism came up as the search of ways to reach this ideal. But Marx was creating his work during the primary accumulation of capital and much has changed since that time. New views and new works have appeared.

Speaking without scientific terms and definitions, I can see a very strong self-exploitation in people doing business, so to say, “at their own will”. The person exploits himself even to the prejudice of his own health, sometimes upsetting his family because he has little time left for them. He creates his capital, without thinking about many spiritual values. Maybe it didn’t happen so before. What will happen to the capital flow afterwards? I reflected on this problem. Probably, new technologies will reach such a level that it will be senseless to speak either about capitalism, or socialism, there will be much more opportunities for really free labour and consumption closer to needs. Anyway, there will be constant development, because the capital cannot stop, it must constantly be in use.

Today talented young people become successful in business. If the plan system forced them to work, they wouldn’t manage and wouldn’t want to do even the tenth part of what they are doing now. I mean modern legal business, not dirty one.

So the best ideology today will be the creation of the conditions for the self-realization of such young men and each member of the society by the government. It is necessary to help each person reveal what the nature gifted him with and what education and upbringing instilled in him. Each citizen must have all opportunities for the development of their personality. And it is necessary to set certain rules and strict norms of conduct by means of the law that people will be willing to observe, otherwise the government and society will demand it from them.

For example, I had a chance to read Bill Clinton’s election programme that had become the foundation of the programme of the country’s economic development after he was elected the President of the United States of America. Its backbone was environmental protection: if this or that production didn’t do any good to the environment or moreover was a threat to it, the project was prohibited notwithstanding its economic profit. It is a very good lesson. We used to think about the environment as about some minor problem. But reflecting on it, you understand that when you use poisonous chemicals and fertilizers to get much bread, they get into the bread itself and they are also washed away into the waters by rains. Fish caught in the waters goes to our table too. Mustn’t there be any strict restrictions here? And in our country they often finish where bribes and extortions begin and you are allowed to break any ecological norms. That’s what we must be afraid of! And the government must act very strictly in such cases. It is clearly stated in the Constitution of the Russian Federation that the economy must be socially oriented and the Basic Law prescribes to take the toughest measures when someone violates it and we can see that the formation of the new society isn’t going smoothly, unfortunately.

If the government creates conditions for the development of your talents and shows how you can use them without doing any harm to yourself and other people, it is the best ideology. And what else do you need? You must be able to compete, whether you are a manager, a shoemaker or an aircraft maker. Otherwise you do not exist, or more precisely you are in essence a slave, though you are not a chained galley-slave on a medieval galley.

Lately you have been saying that Tatarstan has overcome the crisis and has entered a new stage of its development. What problems will the republic have to solve in the nearest future in this connection?

Really, Tatarstan along with the whole country has overcome the crisis, and our republic managed to do it at the least possible cost. People had a lot of difficulties, and still have some, but economic indices, as well as the people’s mood, reveal that we have passed the turning point. We have learnt the basics of the market economy and understood better what competition is, we have studied more carefully the global financial system and most advanced technologies. Now we must create, and Russia can afford it. Moreover, we must do our best for our country to become one of the leading world economies by all main indices.

I have always said: Russia has the right to be only strong, it is the historical fate of this country. In order to grow stronger and provide the country’s security, to increase the quality of life for all our citizens, today we must build, securing human rights and personal freedoms, a democratic civil society based on the developed, competitive market economy integrated in the global system. It is important to skillfully combine modern ways and methods of governing with the newest technologies, using the boldest, the most original decisions.

In Tatarstan, since the middle of the 1990s, the main instrument of the government has been a programme-and-goal method that enabled to fulfill a number of transition projects in oil production, petrochemical industry, agriculture, transportation, communications and telecommunications and important social programmes. The Programme of the Social and Economic Development of the Republic must secure an innovative breakthrough by 2010. The priority sectors are energy, machine-building and agriculture that have the best conditions for the successful work of clusters. It is planned to increase the high technology segment. We expect serious results from the special economic zone Alabuga where new high-tech manufactures will be placed. Research and innovation centres and technoparks, deposit insurance funds and venture funds do a lot of good for the enhancement of the economy. Russia’s first large technopolis Khimgrad will enable to process petrochemical raw materials produced at the republic within its territory.

Increasing the living standard of Tatarstan people was and remains the main goal of all our activities, despite the great importance of other goals, which should probably be achieved mainly by raising the productivity of labour to the level of the advanced countries.

Even the most radical organizational and legislative measures and technological innovations will not be enough for that. It is necessary to change the mentality, the attitudes of our citizens that they not only feel confident in a constantly developing competitive environment, but also become masters of the situation in it. We must change ourselves and then our country and republic will change along with us.

Now I feel the urgent necessity to hold a larger scale work on discovering talented energetic youths, whose role in business I have already mentioned, and to create more opportunities for them to reveal their talents. It will make our future. There are inborn leaders with big intellectual abilities who soak up knowledge and skills as a sponge – they form the basis in the conditions of the freedom of enterprise. Several thousands of young enterprising leaders can provide a good life to all people in the republic. Our industrial companies do have such youths, but there must be more of them. Tatarstan has a good basis in the form of natural resources and scientific and industrial potential to make a breakthrough in the development of its economy, but the key to the success now is to use human resources.

For Tatarstan it is important that it has started the new stage of reforms in the conditions of the political stability. The Agreement about the sharing of powers between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Tatarstan plays a great role in that. The Federal law on the endorsement of this document adopted by the State Duma and approved by the Federation Council was signed on July 26 by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. It was met with much gratitude in Tatarstan. The agreement will help to create a better life in the republic, strengthen the unity of Russia and the well-being of all its citizens.