Russia wanted to create celebration for whole planet - Putin on Sochi Olympics

President of Russian Federation Vladimir Putin gave an interview to the representatives of Russian TV channels summarizing the Sochi-2014 Olympics.

I. Zaynalova: Vladimir Vladimirovich, I would like to first congratulate you for the success of the Olympics, all the people who attended it are praising it: the members of the IOC (International Olympics Committee), the athletes and guests. Practically everything was done without any glitch. I would like to ask right now what was the price for such organization for you and for your team? And how was it possible to achieve such success?

V. Putin: It was a team achievement, the first part was to create the most sport oriented engineering and transport infrastructure. And here the main role, I have already stated this, was played by the Russian Government, the former and current structure of it, as the main work was done by the Ministers: the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Transportation, ministries and departments, who were engaged one way or another in the construction, major Russian infrastructure companies, "Russian Railways", large construction companies. The main work was on-site, here all the Ministers and Deputy Ministers were working, as well as the Prime Minister and your humble servant in the former position and Dmitry Anatolyevich who is now Prime Minister but back then was the President, so it has been mutual team work. When I met with the athletes I said that surely at certain point believed that we would all be able to build and create all of this. But the holiday wouldn't have been so bright and full as it was today without the outstanding work of the whole team. And it is surely important to add that everything was done for the sake of sports. But initially we wanted to turn it into a large national sporting event of our country. I have already talked about this, we have a lot of issues, and we are used to have these issues following us but we need to have a holiday as well. I think we managed to have this kind of a holiday. At the same time, we have always thought about the international sport community, about our partners, about foreign athletes. We wanted to create a holiday for the whole world of sports, for the whole planet. And we are very happy that we have managed to do that. It turned out to be massive and very beautiful.

S. Brilev: Vladimir Vladimirovich, I want to go back to our interview 3 weeks ago, before the Olympics. You were careful back then to make any predictions regarding how many Russian medals there will be. Sochi turned out to be such a triumph that Vancouver seems to be a bad dream which never happened. But now I understand, it was a hint from your side. You told me back then: "Look, watch our young athletes".

V. Putin: Exactly.

S. Brilev: They rocketed. But then there are mathematics on it as well.

V. Putin: Not only young ones. We have very experienced athletes in sledges. Some of them started their career in 1985.

S. Brilev: But going back to the young ones, were there any calculations? If we look at Yulia Lipnitskaya or on Adelina Sotnikova, they are 15 and 17 years old minus four years from Vancouver, they were at this age where the decision could have been made for them to perform now.

V. Putin: It might have been.

S. Brilev: Does that mean that the decision was made before that? And not due to the outcome of Vancouver?

V. Putin: In this kind of sport, the career begins very early. You remembered Adelina Sotnikova, and she remembered something else, she remembered and brought me a photo. She told me: "Vladimir Vladimirovich, I have promised you to become an Olympic champion and I have done that".

S. Brilev: When did she promise you that?

V. Putin: Exactly five years ago.

S. Brilev: So it was before Vancouver?

V. Putin: Five years ago she was twelve. She brought a photo as a proof of our conversation, where she is standing right next to me and I'm hugging her by the shoulders. She is looking at me and I remember how she told me: "I promise I will become an Olympic champion".

S. Brilev: So, had you decided that you would start all of these before Vancouver?

V. Putin: The thing is that it is not my decision. It is the decision of the experts. The main idea here is not to substitute experts with yourself: not engineers, not ecologists, not constructors, not trainers. And if to talk about this, then a huge impact to our sport accomplishments were made by the Ministry of Sports and Minister Mutko. And, of course, by teams of trainers who at the same time were defined from recommendations of experts. Unfortunately, a lot of people spread all around the world. And it is not bad since we have a free country. And maybe it sounds primitive but it is true, all of them are high level experts, working force. It is known that working force is searching for the best possible way to implement itself. And I think that now, our country has the best work conditions for high level experts and if those conditions were not created completely then, they are in the process of being created very energetically, and we are completely competitive with our partners in other countries. Many people do come back, both athletes and trainers. After the Olympics we have received an agreement of some experts to return. So all this work is a long term project, the same way as the construction of a ship or a submarine, for instance. All of these require time and effort. You know, when we began all of this, the Olympics, I had said in one of my speeches that we have a very young and a very prospective team. The main thing is not to lose speed, not to slow down but to continue improving, help athletes and trainers and experts, different experts. Modern sports are of high achievement, colleagues know about this, they require experts from different levels. And this is the direction that one should work on.

К. Kiknadze: Vladimir Vladimirovich, continuing the topic of sports and experts who worked here. There is the Germany example that I am sure you are aware of.

V. Putin: Yes.

К. Kiknadze: Kids starting from the age of 5 or 6 are being carefully watched. There is a file on every boy, every girl who could potentially in 5-6 years become valuable for the big sports. Is it possible in our country to do the same thing?

V. Putin: You have started from the amateur sports and then turned out to be in the professional sport's field. But this is not the same thing. And for us, from the demographic point of view, from the point of view of the nation's health the most important aspect is the massive sport. And here you mentioned about the example of let's say Germany and it really resembles the Soviet experience. But our whole GTO system was based on the state, while in Germany it is all private. By the way, it was managed by Mr. Bach, the current president of the IOC. And it works very effectively: in districts, in areas, in towns, all of which are volunteer communities, they operate on the basis of small donations, people pay modest fees. But if to take into considerations massive amount of organizations, they are capable of maintaining skating rinks, small sport stadiums, places to play hockey and so on. They get membership tickets and they can go there paying minimum price. There is a group of people who use these benefits. I want to draw your attention to the fact that in Soviet period we had all of this, it is just that we didn't pay 30 kopeсks from our pocket, maybe once, to become part of DOSAAF, we just paid insignificant money amounts to GTO or DOSAAF and then the government or civil unions did everything. We can restore all of that and continue the path of the massive sports this way. But at the same time, massive sport gives an opportunity to choose the most promising children, young people for the sport and for high achievements and in order to do that, we have to create the system of special institutions: sport schools, schools of high sporting skills and so on and so forth, you know all about this. We should all restore this and continue moving forward. Overall, we are doing that.

I. Zaynalova: Vladimir Vladimirovich, now that you have met with our athletes, you were congratulating them and awarding them. We have all achieved that, they, we, the whole country. It was this feeling of us gathering together and we are proud of that. But high achievement in sports requires constant flow, attention from the government. There is Brazil and South Korea in the future. How to maintain this high level of attention? What would it cost and is it even possible to do so?

V. Putin: We are not talking about money right now when we say what it is going to cost.

I. Zaynalova: Attention. Attention is the main thing.

V. Putin: Attention we will save for sure. I don't know if we manage to achieve the same results as in Sochi, in our home. As you know it, at home the walls help you, as we say. But of course the fans help. This is why I want to say thanks again to our people not only for them cheering our team but for them, apart from few exceptions that have created such good, friendly atmosphere in which the representatives of all the countries who participated in the Games lived for two weeks. In foreign places, it is harder. It is always like that: one team of athletes leaves, another hasn't yet gotten into the right stage, right conditions and hasn't achieved maximum potential in sports development. That's why it doesn't mean that we will always show this kind of results, it is quite difficult but it is obvious that we can develop and we will continue to do so.

A. Lubimov: Vladimir Vladimirovich, I was consistently worried and puzzled by how foreign mass media covered the Olympics. In the end I was outraged as I never usually am. I am not a citizen, but even I was torn by patriotic feelings. Why such injustice? Is it normal?

V. Putin: This is very good. (Laughing)

A. Lubimov: If we talk about me, I agree.

V. Putin: You know what I want to tell you, it's not just you, everybody were touched by this. This means that our foreign colleagues who were doing what we have just mentioned have achieved opposite results of what they tried to gain. I would like to separate certain things here. First of all, we have always worked, during all those years, in the atmosphere of criticism, and in the majority of cases, it was well-construed, very friendly and constructive criticism from the IOC. Yesterday, in such informal atmosphere I have expressed my gratitude to Mr. Killy and the former president of IOC and the current one, not only for trusting us with the Olympics, but also because from the very first steps they showed us where to go, how the program should be done from the organization perspectives, from the planning and constructing point of view. I think that without such constructive and friendly criticism we would have done everything but I doubt we could have done that on such high quality level since our friends from IOC have incredible experience that we lack. And they have shared their experience with us. But at the same time, there was and maybe still is another kind of criticism, of those people who are not close to sports and who are engaged in competitions in the sphere of international politics. They have another aim, another work and they used the Olympic project for the achievement of their own goals in the sphere of anti-Russian propaganda.

A. Lubimov: Did you react calmly to that?

V. Putin: This has nothing to do with sports and I have always accepted that calmly. Do you know why? Because I know what it is and I know what it costs and I know that argue in that matter is useless. It doesn't matter what we say and no matter how hard we try to change their opinion, it is impossible because they have another job, another goal. I want to repeat once again, this is a sphere of competitive strife in the area of international politics, maybe even geopolitics. Because when strong competitors emerge, in this case Russia, they start feeling anxious, somebody just doesn't like that, somebody starts feeling afraid, as they don't understand how deeply, how massively the Russian society has changed. In this aspect, Olympics are very important for us, as it (and I really want it to be that way) has helped to open not just the doors to Russia but the doors to the Russian soul, to the soul of our people. In order for people to see and understand that there is nothing to be afraid of, we are ready and we want cooperation. And maybe those who criticize are unfriendly, and I think we can't even call them like that but I repeat it, they just have another job and maybe some of their fears disappeared and I really hope for that. And if we have managed to achieve that, then it is another success of the Olympics.