President Vladimir Putin got together today with a smaller number of student “influencers” today at the Knowledge First forum in Moscow to exchange views on the importance of transmitting to the younger generation an understanding of the nation’s history, its culture, and its values. He started by giving a moving explanation of how almost all the families in Russia and the Soviet Union, including his own, were affected by the casualties of war. He stressed that only such an understanding can create the bonds uniting the youth with the parents and the grandparents, uniting the present with the past, and noting that this alone can provide the basis for young people to decide how they are going to fashion their lives, to mold the future.
There were a number of exchanges with the students, some of whom related stories within their own families about the experience of the Great Patriotic War, others who talked about projects they were involved in to promote and understanding of the nation’s history among the younger generation.
