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The Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast
May 14, 2010. Vladimir Zhidkikh attended the second part of the 61th PACE Session
 Vladimir Zhidkikh, Tomsk Oblast State Duma representative in the Russian Federation Council and Chairman of the Youth and Tourism Committee of the Federation Council, commented on the results of the second part of the 61th session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
“To my mind, this PACE session was held under the Russian flag,” he said.
That became clear after a very inspirational speech by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in front of the Members of the European Parliament. During the course of the session the Minister opened the exhibition “The Young Multinational Russia” which was held at the Palais de l’Europe. The Europeans took great interest in the exhibition developed by young Russians, which told about the many nationalities making up the country of Russia. Many Members of the European Parliament were taken by surprise to learn that the territory of Russia is home to over 140 ethnic nationalities including representatives of the European Council member countries such as the Latvians, Ukrainians and German.
Under the auspices of the Russian delegation the European Youth Center held a seminar for youth parliament members from many regions of Russia where they could learn from the experience of the leaders of European sociopolitical organizations.
The PACE Political Committee presented a brief and fair report on causes of the Soviet Union’s Great Famine in the 1930s. The report said that food was taken away from villagers in the same manner in many regions across the Soviet Union without targeting any specific ethnic group.
Vladimir Zhidkikh explained that one of the European Council member countries, namely Ukraine, during the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko sought recognition of those tragic events as genocide of Ukrainians. “The Russian delegation insisted that millions of people from different ethnic groups lost their lives in vast territories across the Soviet Union during the Great Famine of the 1930s,” Mr. Zhidkikh said. “Victims were not only in Ukraine, but across many regions of the former USSR, including the Volga Region, the South Urals, western Siberia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, etc. All that was a result of the country’s government decisions who should justly take the blame now.”
The final resolution passed at the session said that the tragedy was caused by the actions and policies of the Soviet government only. So, PACE did not recognize Ukrainian statements on the genocide of the Ukrainian people.
 “I am a member of the PACE Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee. Three months ago the Committee submitted to the agenda of the Assembly a report and draft resolution on the subject ‘Women and the Financial Crisis,” Vladimir Zhidkikh said. “We are convinced that women suffered most during the crisis. Generally, women do not take part in political and economical decisions which influence the global economy but they are the first to be hit by economic downturns and crises.
In my report I was telling about what Russia did to protect its citizens from the crisis. Here, our experience is unique – in 2010 we increased pensions by 40%, and almost 100bn Euros were spent on promoting employment and creating new jobs.
The discussions raised the fact that such a situation is rarely observed around the world, and some countries even cut social support for people.
A resolution was passed which stated the necessity to learn from the experience of the countries where the national policy is focused on social support for the people who suffered most during the crisis. The European Parliament recommended that European countries consider that experience. The Assembly decided to revisit that issue during its winter session.”
In conclusion the representative of the Russian Federation Council said that he felt “supportive attitude of the Assembly towards Russia at this spring session. The most controversial resolutions on the Georgia-Ossetia conflict and the Great Famine of the 1930s in the USSR were turned down. In his annual report the Commissioner on Human Rights of the Council of Europe Thomas Hammarberg expressed gratitude to Russia for fulfilling its commitments and ratifying Protocol 14 on the reform of the Strasbourg Court.”
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