Vladimir Putin meets with members of the public community liaison office of the United Russia party

Transcript of the conversation:

Vladimir Putin: What a team has come!

Alexander Gvardis: Good afternoon.

Vladimir Putin: Hello!

Alexander Gvardis: Mr Putin, I am the general manager of the Baltika football club. This is our Kaliningrad team, which plays in the top division. I also head the bid committee for Kaliningrad established a year ago for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Vladimir Putin: Who’s your coach?

Alexander Gvardis: Baltika’s coach, you mean? Sergei Frantsev. We’ve had some changes in the club this year. I became a manager a month ago.

Vladimir Putin: Is it a private club? 

Alexander Gvardis: No, it belongs to the city and the region on a fifty-fifty arrangement.

Vladimir Putin: Are these your best players?

Alexander Gvardis: Not yet! These are our students. These children are eager to play football, and they do all right. We have come to make a request. We think Kaliningrad can host some of the World Cup matches  to be held in Russia. We are doing a lot for it. And the boys want to speak up. Please let them say what they are preparing for.

Vladimir Putin: So these are your cheerleaders, right?

Alexander Gvardis: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: Speak up, kids.

Response: Mr Putin, we will have greater opportunities if Kaliningrad hosts the World Cup, and we will work to get to the national team.

Vladimir Putin: How old are you?

Response: Twelve.

Vladimir Putin: And what’s your name?

Response: Zhenya.

Vladimir Putin: And yours?

Response: Nikita.

Vladimir Putin: How long have you been playing?

Response: For four years now.

Vladimir Putin: How are your training and competitions arranged? Do they have proper teams?

Alexander Gvardis: Yes, we have a youth sports academy with coaches, and they form teams according to age. The boys grow up at school. We play and travel a lot. The kids visit other Russian cities and even go abroad. The school takes part in junior national championships for various age groups. We participate in all competitions in the Baltic countries, and have close contacts with Poland and Germany. The boys recently visited Britain and played with British teams. Everything is okay, in general. But to tell you the truth, our sport facilities leave much to be desired. Kaliningrad’s first football field with artificial turf  will be ready this year – in May, to be precise. We didn’t have any before.

Vladimir Putin: Who is responsible for its construction? The ministry?

Alexander Gvardis: Yes, with federal funding. We are grateful to the regional administration for helping us – but still, we would like you to support us. Thirteen cities are racing to host the 2018 World Cup. Five of them will drop out. We would like to be among the other eight.

Vladimir Putin: Yes,  there are 13 cities being considered. A FIFA expert group will come to make final recommendations on the venues that FIFA finds the best for developing the relevant facilities and hosting the World Cup. They are all well-known cities, and I think local experts know everything there is to know about them, too. Kaliningrad really has infrastructure problems, but then, perhaps that is why it deserves special attention – I also mean due to its main specifics.

Your city needs a stadium with seating for at least 45,000. The question is whether it will be used to full capacity later. If you, as club manager, vouch for your team to make a good showing, if you promise to bring up a new generation of players and if you are sure the city will really use the stadium, for our part, we will do everything to keep Kaliningrad on the list of bidders to host 2018 World Cup matches. Then, the stadium will be certainly built.

Alexander Gvardis: Thanks a lot. You see, a FIFA commission has been here already. I myself received them, and showed them around the city. They liked it very much, and they also approved of the position of the Kaliningrad Region because FIFA wants as many middle and low-income people as possible to visit World Cup games.

FIFA experts say the Kaliningrad Region suits them because people from Poland and the other Baltic countries within the 2,000 kilometre range can come by car, buy tickets and attend matches.

You  mentioned the problem of large stadiums and their later use. We have thought about this. If we build a stadium for 45,000, while we need one seating only 25,000, we can later remove the excess benches as the stadium design envisages 20,000 portable seats. Then, the stadium will be located in  Kaliningrad’s park belt.

Vladimir Putin: It’s in an island, if I am not mistaken? 

Alexander Gvardis: Right. It’s a 20 or 25-minute walk from the city centre – a pleasure in fair weather. The stadium will be in a large park,  which is also accessible by riverboat. See, we have given thought to everything! Besides, it will be not a mere stadium but a recreation centre with shops, restaurants, parking lots, driveways, and so on… We have a comprehensive plan for it.

Vladimir Putin: As you know, there was a long battle for the right to host the World Cup. Russia won in a fair and absolutely equal competition, and we want to use the games mainly for the development of the transport, social and sport infrastructure.

In this sense, a better venue than Kaliningrad can hardly be found, especially considering the benefits you mentioned. The city is close to Europe’s centre. It is easy to get here from Poland, Germany and the other Baltic countries. So we will work together for Kaliningrad to be among the World Cup hosts.

Alexander Gvardis: Thank you very much!

Vasily Bykov: Mr Putin, I am a businessman. We are a young company and we have to travel often, to Lithuania and Poland. We’ve run into some problems. I will explain based on my personal experience.

Vladimir Putin: What’s your business?

Vasily Bykov: We make payment modules, you know, for coin-operated copiers. We ensure that all pieces of equipment are interconnected and anyone..

Vladimir Putin: Do you mean purely intellectual products?

Vasily Bykov: Mainly. We need to bring these things together. Our programmers are in Lithuania and the cases are manufactured here. It appears that we need a small company there, because the corporation cannot just operate here and resolve all the visa problems. So, I travel to Lithuania, and everything works out all right. However, last year I needed to go to Poland, but, out of the blue, they sent me to the Polish consulate and wouldn’t give me a Lithuanian visa. So I went to the Polish consulate and they told me that I needed to obtain a Lithuanian visa too. I had to invent all sorts of schemes and ask for private invitations only to have access to my partners. It would be OK if I had to spend one day. But it takes weeks. When you queue up for one consulate, be prepared for three weeks of waiting, and another consulate will take you another three weeks, and so on. I lose time and money too. There are many other similar companies – small private companies that often need to travel, and they want everything done quickly. They need a simple solution to this problem. What options do we have? We are told we could meet within the 50-kilometre zone without any visas. But Kaunas and Klaipeda are 60 or 70 kilometres away, and in Poland, Gdansk is 70 kilometres away from the border, and Kaliningrad is 60 kilometres from the border. So, I can’t go there. We heard that these visa problems would be resolved soon. But I have an idea on how to accelerate the process. It would be good to draw a border around Brussels so that all who work there would get a feel of what it’s like to be in Kaliningrad. I am sure they would promptly realise it is a big problem. As it is, they don’t really care. What’s Kaliningrad to them? Nobody ever goes there. But the thing is, nobody goes because it requires a visa. My partners would also want to visit me more often, but each trip costs 35 euros.

Vladimir Putin: 35 to 70 euros.

Vasily Bykov: Yes. Travel agents add their own charges, and one project requires about 10 trips. A long-term visa is out of the question of course.

Vladimir Putin: You know our position. We have called for visa-free travel to the EU, and many of our European partners support Russia on this issue. But such issues can only be resolved on a reciprocal basis. This is the most frequent, or rather the only, internationally accepted practice. We are ready for it in Russia, but the European Union… It has 27 members who make decisions on such issues. Some of them agree, while others don’t. This process is very complicated although they are interested in visa-free travel too.

You said things would get going if a border is drawn around Brussels and its surroundings. But this isn’t so. I recently visited Germany and met with local business leaders in Berlin. They have the same problems. They also find it complicated and expensive to apply for a Russian visa every time they need to travel here. This is a concern for the business communities on both sides of the border.

Unfortunately, it does not depend on us alone. We need to work with our partners. What could we do for you now? There is one small step we could probably make soon enough. You just mentioned the 50-kilometre zone along the border. This rule applies everywhere in the European Union. And what’s worse, the distance you travel in Russia’s territory also counts. I mean, here’s Kaliningrad, and there’s Lithuania and there’s Poland. People from different parts of the Kaliningrad Region have different limitations on their travel. Some are only allowed to go to Lithuania, and some to Poland, and there are others who can’t go anywhere at all. Therefore, we are currently negotiating some small changes with our partners. First, we would like to extend equal travel opportunities to all residents of the exclave. Second, we would like them to be able to travel to an area in Europe which is equal to the area of the Kaliningrad Region itself. With Lithuania, it would be one-third of the country. That’s good enough. People would also be able to visit a substantial part of Poland. It will be easier for you to meet your partners there. Our Polish partners share this approach and support us.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry is currently in talks with Lithuania and the European Commission. I will attend the government’s meeting with the European Commission tomorrow. We will discuss these issues there. We will start making progress.

Vasily Bykov: It would be great if this problem were finally resolved. We can’t wait. It was so easy three years ago before Lithuania and Poland joined the EU. This was four or five years…

Vladimir Putin: And the whole process was free of charge.

Vasily Bykov: It was. We had passport supplements and we could go anywhere we wanted, but now it’s all a lot of trouble…

Vladimir Putin: They were in the EU, but not part of the Schengen zone. The rules have changed for them since they joined the Schengen Agreement. But I think what we are proposing could make things easier.

Vasily Bykov: Certainly. And, if that could be extended to the whole of Poland and Lithuania and the Kaliningrad Region, so that we could…

Vladimir Putin: Well, the ideal solution would be visa-free travel of course.

Vasily Bykov: An ideal solution, yes.

Vladimir Putin: We are working toward it. How large are your company’s sales?

Vasily Bykov: Around 500,000 roubles per month.

Vladimir Putin: How many employees do you have?

Vasily Bykov: Six.

Vladimir Putin: Is your company entitled to the privilege for small businesses that provides an easier transitional period for increasing the unified social tax?

Vasily Bykov: No it isn’t.

Vladimir Putin: But why? It’s a production company, isn’t it?

Vasily Bykov: We still need to prove that.

Vladimir Putin: But you could enjoy a significant tax benefit. What’s wrong with proving anything? Just go and complete the formalities. Nearly all production companies – and yours is a small production company – ought to use this easy transitional period when social insurance premiums rise. Why lose money?

Vasily Bykov: You’re right. We’ll do that. Thank you very much.

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