Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged young people from around the world to “follow the dream together with Russia,” stressing that the future should be built through friendship, mutual respect and cooperation rather than differences in citizenship, wealth, status or origin.
Putin made the remarks while addressing participants and guests of the International Youth Festival in Yekaterinburg, which is hosting young leaders from different countries under the motto “Follow the Dream.”
“We will be glad to welcome those who decide to join our projects in Russia. But we will be no less happy if, in your own countries, in your beloved homelands, you build our common new, open and, hopefully, fair world. I have no doubt that you, the younger generation, will succeed. This is your time. Follow the dream together with Russia!” Putin stressed.
The Russian leader also emphasized that a person’s fate should not be determined by citizenship, wealth, status or origin.
“We are for a world where a person remains a person, and their fate is not determined by citizenship, a wallet filled with money, status or origin,” Putin said.
He noted that the festival is being held in Yekaterinburg, the capital of the Urals, a city where Europe and Asia meet and where history can be found “literally in every stone.”
Putin recalled that ideas that changed the country for the better had emerged in the Urals over the centuries, citing the region’s first factories, Russia’s first industrial revolution and hundreds of modern scientific breakthroughs.
“Where else but here — in one of the main centers of Russia’s industrial, cultural and intellectual heritage — should young leaders from different countries discuss how our lives are changing with the arrival of new technologies and what the world of the future should look like?” the Russian president emphasized.
He further stressed the importance of lasting friendship, fair relations and mutual respect.
“If we are friends, then we are friends firmly and for a long time. If we live as neighbors, then we want everything to be fair and based on mutual respect,” Putin said.
The International Youth Festival is being held in Yekaterinburg from September 11 to 17. The event is attended by 10,000 people from 191 countries.
By Jeyhun Aghazada
