Vladimir Putin completed the World Youth Festival

On the evening of March 6, the closing ceremony of the World Youth Festival (WYF) took place on the federal territory of Sirius. President Vladimir Putin summed up the results of the festival together with the participants. He emphasized equality, which, in his opinion, was the triumph of WFM. The closing ceremony, after which the festival will run for another day, was dedicated to the touching details that brought young people from all continents to Sochi.

To describe the closing of the festival with the term “ceremony” would not be entirely correct. Although the event fully corresponded to the inherent scale of the WSF, the solemnity of the moment was somewhat reduced for the sake of intimacy – if we can talk about intimacy in relation to the overcrowded hall of the Big Ice Palace, designed for 8 thousand people. The scenery and soothing voice of Konstantin Khabensky – participants and guests met him in the role of Artificial Intelligence a week ago during opening ceremony — immersed the audience in the atmosphere of an evening camp fire, a hologram of which was even displayed in the middle of the stage. Around (this “around” turned out to be, in fact, the whole hall), as usual, they sang with a guitar, unobtrusively reflected and summed up the results. “More than 20 thousand young people from all over the world populated the City of Youth, filling it with life,” recalled Artificial Intelligence. “Processions, matches, concerts and unifying events took place on the streets: five intense days of a meaningful program with discussions, master classes, networking and meetings , a vibrant sports program with its own competitions and morning exercises from champions, an extensive cultural program.”

Several stories from delegates from different continents were intended to humanize the statistics, with some quantitative bias in favor of Asia. Brief biography and aspirations of the heroes were presented in touching video stories, and they shared their impressions of the festival live from the stage.

The audience greeted their stories with frantic delight. The first to talk about herself was a participant from China, who came to the WFM to promote the format of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The second speaker was a delegate from Iran, who found himself teaching Russian to his compatriots – although his parents encouraged their son to become a doctor or programmer. “Don’t be afraid to try, the main thing is to find your own!” – the Iranian admonished.

The Tanzanian, who fights for African ecology, called for being ambitious and not shy about having your own vision on all issues: “When the experience of the elders and the ambitions of the young intersect in one place, incredible results are obtained: the youth festival is a great place to feel it.” An IT developer from India who launched his own volunteer platform (he spoke fourth) showed confidence that in the near future the world will certainly see the digital projects that originated these days in Sirius.

The lyrics were added by a young Argentinean guitarist representing the Western Hemisphere. He, as he had dreamed since childhood, finally began to make money from music, and brought his mother with him to Sirius, who dreamed of seeing the world. The musician presented her and the audience with an original cover of “Nadezhda” by Alexandra Pakhmutova – the international young audience (we remind you that the age of the participants ranged from 18 to 35 years) unexpectedly loudly and unanimously sang along on the choruses.

The last of the foreign heroes, a delegate from Italy and a MGIMO student, expressed the hope of actively working to strengthen relations between her homeland and Russia.

Here the participants were once again persistently invited to think about what is happening in the world. “Warm? Is it light? — Artificial Intelligence shamelessly asked in Khabensky’s voice. “And so?” And even the technical lights in the hall went out for a few seconds.

A couple of moments later, the voice reminded us that “our lives today were shaped by the Second World War,” and the first World Festival of Youth (and Students) in Prague (in 1947) was dedicated to post-war reconstruction and the memory of the victims of the war. “We are here, we have the opportunity to hold hands and follow our dreams, because less than 80 years ago, light defeated darkness, and we who live will always remember this,” the voice announced. At this point, the volunteers asked the participants to raise above their heads the portraits of sites of the Great Patriotic War, which were handed out to them in folders at the entrance. To the sounds of the requiem “We don’t need to be pitied” to the words of Semyon Gudzenko, written by him in 1945, the same black and white faces floated across the huge screen.

After this, the hall returned to today, and the series of stories about the festival participants was completed by the story of the Russian woman Ekaterina from Norilsk, “living in two worlds at once.” A girl born into a deaf-mute family, against the will of her mother and other circumstances, became a sign language interpreter. “My mission is to translate so that we live in one world, and not in two different ones,” explained Ekaterina and promptly taught those gathered how to say with gestures: “I can help you.”

Then the audience was reminded of the tradition of congratulating women on March 8, after which Vladimir Putin took the stage. His appearance was greeted by the hall with frantic delight and mixed chants: spectators in different parts of the hall did not immediately decide what exactly to shout – “Russia!” or “Putin!”

The President said that when organizing the festival, Russia set itself “fairly simple goals,” namely, “to create conditions of freedom, creativity, friendship that would allow us to communicate with each other, find new friends, and maybe partners for future projects.” . “I hope we succeeded…” said the president and received a wild ovation.

“Thank you very much for this assessment!” – he was moved. The participants “succeeded more than we expected,” Vladimir Putin continued: “It was you who created here, in the south of Russia, a real city of the youth of the world… Thank you!” From the further speech it followed that success became possible due to the fact that “there is something that unites us all”: “Today in Russia we call this our traditional values: this is the foundation of our life, our being.” The first traditional value that comes to mind, the head of state said, is equality: “Just look at those young people over there… Hey, hello! – Vladimir Putin waved to the African delegates in his own way, “to understand that we are different in appearance, in skin color, maybe in some other way… But there is something that unites us all. What is this? Yes, we are all people! And we are all equal.” At this point a second ovation followed. And since everyone is equal, Vladimir Putin concluded, there is no place in the world for “anyone’s exclusivity,” “swaggering,” or “segregation”: “We are all equal from the moment when, thanks to mom and dad, we are born, and there is no other way, even with modern technology: the male and female principles always exist” (third ovation).

Despite the equality of people, there are no equal conditions for their development in today’s world, Vladimir Putin reasoned: “This is the main injustice of today’s world order.” As it turns out, he doesn’t have the key to solving this problem either. “But what I do know is that we should all strive for this. The very fact that we will strive for this will make the world more transparent, fairer, more democratic, more sustainable, balanced and safer.” In the end, Mr. Putin turned to one of the slogans of the WFM – “Let’s start the future together”: “We will consider that the future has begun,” he announced. “But what it will be depends on you!”

Grigory Leiba, federal territory “Sirius”