Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at a ceremony marking the beginning of the new academic year at the Primakov Gymnasium, Moscow Region, September 2, 2019
Let me congratulate everyone on the beginning of the new academic year at the Primakov Gymnasium.
First of all, I would like to greet the first-year students. You are, in effect, getting a new home. Here you have a fine building and school as well as wonderful teachers, who will be very demanding but in a way that you will even enjoy working harder to get better academic results.
I would also like to give my very best wishes for success to senior students. At the end of this year, they will have to take state exams and choose their further path in life. May everything be well with you. I am confident that the gymnasium will do its best to help you make a success of your further journey in life.
Your gymnasium was named after Yevgeny Primakov. He was a great, outstanding statesman, public figure and politician of the modern era, whose 90th birth anniversary we will celebrate later this year. He was a truly amazing man. Possessing an encyclopedic store of knowledge, he continued to study throughout his life, identifying ever new spheres that he had to embrace to be effective in all the positions he filled – intelligence, the Foreign Ministry, the Academy of Sciences, the Russian Government, and parliament. He worked all his life to find solutions to the most difficult problems. This is perhaps the main example that you should follow: Do not run away from anything. There are times – and we know this all too well – when one feels utterly discouraged. But do not surrender, march ahead. Your wonderful teachers will help you and, undoubtedly, so will the atmosphere created at this gymnasium, for which allow me to express special gratitude to the leaders of the Moscow Region and all those involved in the effort. This atmosphere will certainly facilitate your development into strong, independent and brilliant personalities.
I wish you luck.
Let me congratulate you on the beginning of the new academic year.