President of Tatarstan highly commends Team 2013's contribution in outgoing year. Part 4
On Tuesday, December 17, President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov held a traditional pre-New Year meeting with representatives of republican and federal media outlets to sum up the results of the year 2013 and to set future goals for the republic. The meeting was attended by Chief of Staff of Tatarstan President's Office Asgat Safarov, Head of Tatarstan President's Press Office Andrey Kuzmin, and Head of the Republican Agency for Press and Mass Communications Irek Minnakhmetov.
The Tatarstan President spoke about the social and economic development of the republic in 2013. According to Rustam Minnikhanov, the most important and significant event of the year was the Summer Universiade .
"I will begin, perhaps, with the biggest events - the Summer Universiade, which we held. We have been preparing for this event for five years. I can say that the Universiade enabled us to transform dramatically our city, our republic, to prepare a lot of professionals, to build the hospitality infrastructure, to construct sports venues, the Universiade Village, and more especially the airport complex, intermodal rail line... Many useful things has been done for the good of the city, for the republic, for our investors, for our residents," the President said.
The Head of State also stressed: "The commendation that we got from the leadership of our country and the FISU Executive Committee means that everything that we had conceived was implemented to the full extent. I believe that such workforce as volunteers, as members of the Universiade Executive Directorate, as our service workers, made progress in many respects, and the level of Kazan became somewhat different. Plus, residents and guests of our capital actively attended events, actively supported our team, and even surprised foreign sports officials by their response to these events."
"The main thing is, probably, the result. Our country, the Russian Federation, our athletes won a total of 292 medals: 155 gold, 75 silver and 62 bronze. There are different opinions about it. But, you know, we should be proud of our country, we should be proud of our athletes and results. All in all, we must take pride in those achievements that we have in our country, the achievements of our people," Rustam Minnikhanov said.
At the end of the meeting he thanked journalists for their work and wished them further success in the new year, Tatarstan President's Press Office reports.