OREANDA-NEWS. November 16, 2011. Vladimir Putin: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time we've come together in such a format. No rural intelligentsia forums have ever been held before, but I hope this will become a regular event. Social issues shall be largely administered by municipalities; regional authorities play a secondary role here, while the federal government is only indirectly involved.

Forty percent of our population work in agriculture, so the welfare of rural population is to be ensured by authorities of every level. This is why we've invited you here today. Our aim is not to suggest any final solutions, but rather to identify or highlight the many problems we're facing and to think of how we can tackle them. It's about the future of the Russian countryside, about how we can ensure its sustainable development, thereby creating conditions for rural inhabitants to live more fulfilling lives and be effective workers and parents, as well as providing young and not-so-young members of rural communities with new local opportunities.

All of you are part of the intelligentsia, who, according to Solzhenitsyn, "is a unique Russian treasure." This is, indeed, a special breed of people – cultured, coherent, and forward-looking, with an acute sense of responsibility for their land, their community, their fellow countrymen, and their nation.

You don't just serve your communities as doctors, teachers, engineers, cultural professionals, and so forth. Fellow villagers also turn to you for advice on a wide variety of non-related matters, including personal ones. This has always been the case, including during the times of zemstvo reform and in the Soviet era. Integrity and responsiveness are among the most precious human qualities.

Working as you do in the countryside, you have firsthand knowledge of the problems facing rural communities, as well as some idea of how these problems could be solved.

It's only natural that your communities should choose you to represent their interests [in legislatures]. As of today, members of the intelligentsia constitute about one half of the deputies in local legislatures. In this past summer's nationwide primaries ahead of the (December 4) parliamentary polls, rural intelligentsia activists received wide public support, among urban residents as well as fellow rural dwellers. I'm sure that via the United Russia party, many of you will eventually make it to the federal parliament.

We see you as like minds and allies with whom we can solve shared problems, building strong and prosperous rural communities, with access to quality healthcare services and education, so that people could have confidence in their future and a sense of belonging. We should work together to make the Russian countryside full of opportunities for people seeking self-realisation.

One of our priorities is the creation in rural areas of efficient companies and of interesting and prestigious jobs. The idea is to provide local inhabitants with a source of decent and steady income while at the same time forming a solid economic and financial basis for sustainable development. Economic success underlies welfare, in the town as in the country.

By the way, (Russia's) rural communities have done a great job this year, bringing in a remarkable harvest. But this is a topic we should discuss separately.

We're committed to supporting all forms of entrepreneurship in the countryside, primarily small and medium-sized businesses. A programme for start-up farmers will get underway as early as next year. It will provide state grants for new farms, as well as long-term loans. We'll be developing companies involved in the processing and distribution of agricultural produce while also stimulating other sectors, such as arts and crafts, tourism, and services. Our ambition is to prove that people living in the countryside can make a good living.

For our agricultural industry to be productive, we need to introduce new technology, and this requires an upgrade in professional training. In developing and implementing education programmes, we need to continue promoting the integration of schools and research institutes with agricultural businesses. This will improve the quality of training in professions that are the most in-demand in the countryside.

Also, we should raise the prestige of agricultural jobs. Younger generations should come to realise the great public value of working one's own land. And the intelligentsia has a major role to play in getting these ideas across.

We'll be able to breathe new life into the Russian countryside, making our rural communities powerful and prosperous, only if we ensure high social standards.

All discussion about the accessibility of public services in rural communities, including health, education, libraries, and arts and sports facilities, must begin with roads. The lack of rural roads has been one of Russia's main problems for centuries, and it's still the case. As of today, 46,000 of the country's villages have no year-round paved access roads. They've never had any such infrastructure, neither in pre-Soviet times, nor in the Soviet era. Which means ambulances may not be able to reach such villages during spring flooding and school buses may get stuck in the mud. Even going shopping is a problem here, as well as visits to a post office, to a bank or to some recreational facility. Rural dwellers, especially those living in remote areas, often feel cut off from the rest of the world. But it's unacceptable to leave people to face such circumstances on their own.

You know better than anyone that in the past two years, we've realised a large-scale project to repair inner-city roads and improve housing estates in all the regional capitals of Russia. We've released some 50 billion roubles in budget allocations for this purpose. During my frequent trips across the country, I can see the resulting changes. This project is quite costly, but not prohibitively, and it does pay off, making local inhabitants appreciate the results. So it would be natural to expand that work further.

We propose identifying three spending priorities for money from road funds and consolidating those priorities in legislation. As many of you may know, starting next year we'll be setting up federal and regional road funds. Municipalities are entitled to establish funds of their own, with money transferred from regional funds.

Until now, there've been certain restrictions on the use of money from road funds, though. We suggest lifting these restrictions. I'm talking primarily about rural roads, the improvement of public amenities across the country, and about repairs and renovation of roads inside cities, towns and rural communities.

When meeting with rural communities, I often hear people complain that they can spend money from road funds to repair an existing local road or build a new one, but they have no right to repair a road beyond the boundaries of their village, because they need other sources of fundung. But they may have no other sources. So we suggest these artificial constraints be removed. Communities should be given the right to redistribute some of the money from their regional road funds to other purposes.

In the next two years, a total of 130 billion roubles is to be allocated for this project. Never before has so much money been channelled into the improvement of rural infrastructure and amenities.

We'll need appropriate amendments to the Budgetary Code and some other laws. I can see some United Russia MPs here, in the audience. I'd like to use the occasion to ask you to adopt these amendments as a priority, before the (State Duma's) winter recess.

Our efforts are aimed at dramatically improving the living environment for rural communities across Russia. But along with road construction, we should attend to the entire network of educational, medical, sports and cultural facilities.

And in developing our social policies for rural communities, we should above all be governed by the interests of their members, without losing sight of our strategic task to develop the country's vast spaces.

We need to work together to find a proper solution with regard to small rural schools, in order to preserve them where necessary. Teachers and those working in the educational sector know perfectly well that any small rural school has a small number of students and the number of teachers at times almost equals the number of students, and maintaining such schools is expensive for both the region and the municipality. On a nationwide scale, we must seek ways to preserve these schools so that maintaining them is less financially burdensome than it is today, while at the same time keeping them operational.

I have mentioned this at the meeting with agricultural workers and I will say it again here. One possible solution to this issue involves establishing good quality, large educational centres, along with their associated branches, in the rural areas. Also, there are certain administrative expenses that can be cut, and education standards raised, considering the opportunities for a more wide-spread use of distance learning.

With the country’s vast territories, certain regions simply cannot do without retaining small rural schools, even if it is expensive for the regions and municipalities. Children must have the opportunity to attend schools in their native villages and to receive quality education services in the proper conditions in order to be on par with their urban peers.

Certain regions have already developed mechanisms for the establishment of branches of central schools at the premises of small rural schools. Other useful experience includes launching community centres which provide educational, cultural and medical services for residents in villages. All these opportunities should be considered while implementing our project on developing school education.

As a reminder: finances from the federal budget for each of Russia’s regions are calculated based on the number of students in their schools. I am certain you know this, but I will say it again: we allocate twice as much money for rural school students.

I think during our discussion we will pay particular attention to education in rural areas, including pre-school and general school education, and will discuss the issue of reducing regulatory requirements on the number of students at small rural schools.

This applause is coming primarily from organisers of the school movement, with whom I've met more than once before and have discussed this problem repeatedly. I understand their enthusiasm. We should take a professional approach to this, and attempt to find out what really needs to be done, and then concentrate our energy on priority tasks. And we should move forward with the establishment of large educational centres where it appears feasible. To achieve tangible results, we must be creative and flexible in our actions.

Our ultimate goal is to provide our children with quality school education so that they are able to be competitive enough to enter university and start a career, such that they will be on the same level as their urban peers. This is our ultimate goal and we must try our hardest to achieve it.

As for medical services, our priority here is to consolidate the system of primary healthcare, which is in especially high demand in the countryside. Regional programmes include renovating and purchasing new equipment for rural health centres and district hospitals, increasing the number of general practitioner offices, improving ambulance service and providing villagers with access to quality health services. I’d like to point out that we have already provided resources and bought new equipment for hospitals as part of the National Priority Health programme. We must maintain this level of service. Do you understand? This is not a so-called federal mandate, but a regional or municipal responsibility. We did that to help boost development, to improve the primary level of healthcare service and we demand that the regions and municipalities maintain this level.

I just talked to a resident of this village. He took me by the arm on the street and asked if he could go with me. There he is in the audience. He says the ambulance is low on brake fluid and that they never have enough gas and that the car is falling apart. But who is responsible for this? This is a serious maintenance issue.

We have prepared another programme allocating 460 billion roubles for two years. This money will mostly be directed toward the primary healthcare level, for actual maintenance, new equipment and so on. But we will be assuming that we are supporting the regions and municipalities with this money, and we want them to maintain this level.

Speaking of this specific issue, we will talk about it and clear it up. In general, I would like to address my colleagues. You should not forget about these issues; and don’t think that you got the money from the federal budget, raised some sector to a certain level, and then redirect the funds to some other issue which you think is more important, because everything will just fall apart again, and then you will expect Moscow to hand over more money. This attitude is wrong.

And, of course, doctors, paramedics, school teachers, technicians, drivers and other personnel working in tough rural environments should be adequately compensated for their efforts. They should be paid wages that are substantial enough that they do not have to do extra work in order to survive.

As you probably know, we are currently building up wage funds for people involved in public health and education, in urban and rural areas alike. This is an especially sensitive issue for rural teachers, who have until recently been paid significantly less than their urban counterparts. This is why regional authorities have been asked to bring teacher wages up to the all-sector average in their region and beyond. I believe that in the next academic year, this goal will be met in all of Russia’s regions. The salaries of doctors and paramedics should also be raised, including within the framework of the Healthcare Modernisation programme.

Let me add here that regional and local authorities have a major role to play in the creation of good conditions for healthcare and education workers.