ello (@piers)

#Putin: "Colleagues, good afternoon. Before we get down to work, I would like to first of all wish all the best to our colleague on the Pobeda Organising Committee, General of the Army Anatoly Kulikov, President of the Russian Military Leaders’ Club, on his 80th birthday. Mr Kulikov, I sincerely wish you good spirits, good health, success, and all the very best. Please, go ahead." Kulikov: "Thank you, Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief." VVP: "Thank you for your service. And now let us move on to the agenda. During today’s meeting we will consider new applications for the honorary title of City of Labour Valour, as well as issues related to the improvement of excursion and museum activities and the missions of the executive and judicial branches in preserving historical memory. These are different topics but they are closely interrelated. **What we are dealing with here is a crucial area of state policy: the preservation of historical truth and historical memory**. "This is the work we engage in all the time, and it is built on the feats and achievements of previous generations, which are essential for uniting the country and society and educating new generations. **These are the values, moral guidelines, and the character of the victors that our children and grandchildren must inherit and preserve**. Historical examples play an immensely powerful role here – including the labour heroism of 14- and 15-year-old boys and girls who forged victory on the home front, and numerous young heroes who fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. "One of our key tasks is the preservation of the sites of commemoration, which includes not only war memorials but also buildings that bore witness to landmark events, urban districts, and landscape ensembles. It is here that one enters into an emotional communion with the past, truly understanding the enduring significance of the unbreakable bond between generations and one’s own sense of belonging to the history of one’s homeland. It is precisely in this way – through personal connection – that the sense of responsibility for the Fatherland and national identity are formed. "The Cities of Labour Valour are also places of commemoration. It is of fundamental importance that both residents and visitors to these cities are aware of and pay due tribute to their immense contribution to the Great Victory and to their role in the history of Russia. "Here, I would like to express my gratitude to the fifty municipalities that, in cooperation with the Russian Military Historical Society, have installed City of Labour Valour steles along with the comprehensive landscaping of the adjoining territories and have undertaken this work in a manner befitting the heroism of the homefront workers. Often – and I reiterate this – these were teenagers. Their stories must be given a place in regional museums of local history, which ought to be rich in information about their compatriots: homefront workers and frontline soldiers, veterans of local conflicts, and servicemen taking part in the special military operation. "It is also necessary to make educational and outreach efforts more substantive and wide-ranging. I instruct the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, and the Ministry of Culture, in conjunction with the National Centre for Historical Memory, to continue developing museum and exhibition spaces within cultural and educational institutions, and to prepare methodological recommendations for their integration into learning and educational processes. "Museums represent one of the most effective tools for transmitting historical memory to new generations. In our country, it is often public organisations and citizens themselves who take the initiative to create them. A case in point is the Museum of Memory of the Victims of the Genocide of the Soviet People. This museum was inaugurated in Moscow on June 22, which marked the 85th anniversary of the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, and constitutes a further development of the No Statute of Limitations major public project, under which systematic, large-scale work began and continues to this day to investigate the facts of the extermination of civilians by the Nazis and their accomplices. "The Military Historical Complex on Shumshu Island is another public initiative supported by the state and the regions. It is dedicated to the final battles of World War II – the Kuril Landing Operation. The plan is for the memorial to be completed by 2030, in time for the Victory Day anniversary. "We will discuss this in more detail today as part of our consideration of the new national memorial route, The Far Eastern Victory [...]." Kremlin (4.9.26); p (14) http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/80689