Things are different in the international relations between states. In this respect, I am neither a friend, nor bride or groom [of the West].

I believe that the Europeans, first and foremost, the Germans, will also understand me. Let me remind you that in the course of political consultations on the unification of East and West Germany... some nations that were then and are now Germany's allies did not support the idea of unification. Our nation, however, unequivocally supported the sincere, unstoppable desire of the Germans for national unity. I am confident that you have not forgotten this, and I expect that the citizens of Germany will also support the aspiration of the Russians, of historical Russia, to restore unity.

I was brought up in a very ordinary family, in fact, a worker's family. Both my father and mother were ordinary citizens.

We are expanding and improving the infrastructure of our relations. You must have heard about China's plans to participate in building a high-speed railway line between Moscow and Kazan in the Volga region, in central Russia. And then we plan to extend it to Kazakhstan and on to China.

If there were any in China and Russia in this connection, though we both made some compromises. But these were compromises between friendly countries. I think it is almost impossible to achieve such compromise in other ways.

Then there is another area of activity - economic interaction between Russia and the United States. Right now, for example, it has already been made public that we signed a large deal to privatise one of our biggest oil and gas companies, Rosneft. We know for sure that US companies, as well as Japanese ones, by the way, are keenly interested in cooperation in Russia's oil and gas sector, in joint work. This has immense significance for world energy markets and will directly affect the whole world economy.

Of course, it's always bad to lose, of course it's always a hardship when you lose to yesterday's miners or yesterday's tractor drivers. But life is life. It'll surely go on.