Photo : Messenger
The participants of the World Youth Festival (WYF) in Sirius have created a genuine “city of the world’s youth,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the festival’s closing ceremony on Wednesday night.
“You have managed to accomplish even more than we expected. It was precisely you who created here, in the south of Russia, a true city of the world’s youth,” Putin said.
Lauding the participants, he said “You are all so different. I look at you, and I can see what a diverse group you are. I have met just now with young people from different countries who are studying in Russia. They are all so different. So how did you manage to create this city of world youth when you are so diverse?”
Praising the foreign guests, the Russian president said, “There must be something you all have in common. In Russia, we describe it as our traditional values. They form the foundation of our life, our existence. This means that there is something that unites us.”
Breaking the barrier, he remarked that “we may be different in appearance, skin colour and everything else, but there is something that brings us together, we are all human beings. And we are all equal.”
If we are all equal, there is no place for anyone’s exclusivity in the world. There is no place for arrogance, segregation or other behaviours that stem from the distorted notion of someone’s exclusivity, he added.
We are all equal from the moment we are born.
We are equal from the moment when [we are born] thanks to our mother and father – and this is exactly how humans are born, there is no other way even with modern technology. It is always a male and a female parent, he further said.
The President also assured the foreign participants of the Festival that now the whole of Russia has become their friend, and the doors of our country are open for all noble endeavours.
He quipped, we are all born equal but the question is, do we grow and develop under equal conditions?
The answer is, unfortunately, not. This is the greatest injustice in today’s world order, he added. If you ask me what can be done for everybody to live and to grow under equal conditions, unlocking their talents for the benefit of their loved ones, their family, their country and perhaps humanity as a whole, I do not know. But what I do know for certain is that we all must strive for it. Only by striving for it will we make the world more transparent, just, democratic, sustainable, balanced and safe.
The first World Youth Festival, initiated by Russia, is being held March 1-7, 2024, in the federal territory of Sirius, which is located in the Imereti Lowlands near Sochi, Krasnodar Region, on the Black Sea coast in far southern Russia. In his speech, the President emphasized that we are all equal from the moment of our birth, and while there may be differences between us, there is something greater that unites us all.
“We wanted to create the environment of freedom, creativity, and friendship which would allow you to interact with each other, find new friends or maybe even partners for your future projects,” the head of state said.
When we were inviting you to come to Russia, we set ourselves the fairly simple tasks of creating conditions of freedom, creativity and friendship for you to interact with each other and meet new friends and possibly partners in your future projects. I hope that we succeeded.
WYF-2024 is attended by 20,000 young people (10,000 from Russia and 10,000 from more than 188 countries) who are active in the fields of business, media, international cooperation, culture, science, education, volunteering and charity, sports, and various other areas of public life.
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