SPEECHES OF THE PEOPLES' REPRESENTATIVES

V. SEMENOV,
chair of the State Council of the Udmurt republic

Dear participants of the III World congress of the Finno-Ugrian peoples!

It looks like that I am right saying that the Finno-Ugrian world and all the world community are having a keen sense for the eve of a new age and the change of millenniums. Nations which make the Finno-Ugrian community came to this threshold after having passed an enormous historic distance. Whatever it was for every of our nations, we managed to preserve our existence, language, culture and national-historical memory. Furthermore, we cultivate a growing attention to each other and respect, a wish to communicate closer and more often and to know more about each other.

The new age will apparently not be placid. The mankind solving one problem inevitably confronts the other. One of the issues, as it appears to me, consists in how to preserve - in the epoch of the information society which sweeps everything and all the borderlines - the national and cultural originality of every of our nations and at the same time not to get marginalized in the rapid flow of the time and how to transform this uniqueness into a source of a further development.
The modem Russia is looking the answer to this question along the line of creation of an enlightened state which pursues an active social policy. The Udmurt republic develops more vigorously in the last time than the other regions of the country. A growth of the industrial production, and successful completion of conversion programs allow to the executive and legislative power of Udmurtia to invest considerable amounts into social projects which directly influence the self-feeling of the peoples living in the republic.

For the Udmurt people the social projects of paramount importance are development of science, primary, secondary-level and high national education, formation of national administrative and political elite, mastering the syndrome of social deficiency which, to our regret, is present in consciousness of our people.

I am sure that we have chosen the right way and move in the right direction. I The people will maintain in the future only when remaining as it is it has power to | have a pace with the age on the world level of the scientific-technical, political and | social development.

The World congress of the Finno-Ugrian peoples possess a high authority in the Udmurt republic, all the Russia and well beyond its borders. I hope that thanks to joint efforts the authority will grow and that the dialogue among our nations will gain in its activity all the time and that the Finno-Ugrian world will stand the challenge of the 21th century.

Source: III World Congress of the Finno-Ugrian Peoples. Helsinki, 2000 [Joshkar-Ola, 2001], pp 68–69.

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