A country in which the people are not healthy physically and psychologically, are poorly educated and illiterate, will never rise to the peaks of world civilization.

Without the values at the core of Christianity and other world religions, without moral norms that have been shaped over millennia, people will inevitably lose their human dignity. One must respect every minority’s right to be different, but the rights of the majority must not be put into question.

I'm not really saddened that [Pussy Riot] ended up in jail, though there is nothing good in that. What saddens me is that they took things to such a level, here, from my point of view, that they degraded the dignity of women.

I remember my very first encounter with Japan. At that time, I was Deputy Mayor of St Petersburg. Out of nowhere, Japan's Consul General in St Petersburg came to my office and said Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanted to invite me to Japan. I was very surprised because I had nothing to do with Japan except being a judoka. This was an opportunity to visit Tokyo and a couple of other cities. And, you know, a capital is a capital everywhere: there is the official script and certain protocol. It is always easier to talk in the provinces, the conversation is more natural.

How can a bureaucrat or a politician be trusted if he says loud words for the sake of Russia's good while trying to take his funds, his money abroad?

If someone wants to open this Pandora's box and deal with it, all right, go for it then.

How long has it taken the democratic process to develop in the United States? Since it was founded. So, do you think that as regards democracy everything is settled now in America? If this were so, there would be no Ferguson issue, right? There would be no other issues of similar kind, there would be no police abuse. Our goal is to see all these issues and respond to them timely and properly. The same applies to Russia. We also have a lot of problems.