Theses of German Gref speech to veterans

Dear veterans of WWII

We are very grateful to you for coming to the Ministry today.
Let me personally welcome you in this room and also to greet you on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation, of all employees of the Ministry for Economic Development and Trade of Russia! Please accept my sincere congratulations on the upcoming Day of Victory in WWII!
Dear veterans,
It is 60 years today that this day has been the greatest feast for the entire humankind, and particularly for us, Russians.
Rather much time has passed from that memorable date, May 9, 1945, and we continue to realize the scale of the exploit committed by your generation.
Being engaged in peaceful construction of a new Russian state now, we, your children and grandchildren,  with absolute responsibility  are aware of the fact that this possibility of peaceful life was granted to us by you, winners in the Patriotic War. 
The price of this “donation” is your courage, your nerves, your  war wounds, your patience, your labor on the battlefields and in further work on the national economic recovery.
And, of course, these are lives of many millions of Soviet people fallen in the Patriotic War, these are lives of your comrades – veterans who, unfortunately, have not lived up to this anniversary.
A poet noticed very well that the Victory Day is a feast with tears in eyes……
The memory of those who fell in the war is sacred for all of us! We will always be their irredeemable debtors!
I suggest that we pay the tribute to the memory of those who fell in WWII by a minute of silence …..

Dear veterans

The Victory Day inaugurates not only military success of the Soviet Army that won the fascist Germany together with allies.
This is the feast of the entire nation that, having finished war by means of incredible efforts, overcame ruins and recovered the economy of the great nation.

You know better than anybody what an enormous labor it was, what physical and intellectual efforts were taken to recover the national economy.
Your experience and knowledge are very useful for us, your successors.
If it a great pleasure for us that the veteran organization of the Russian Ministry for Economic Development and Trade, despite different structural transformations, maintained its team and now comprises 762 war participants and rear workers, who at different times worked in the USSR State Planning Committee,  RSFSR State Planning Committee, USSR Ministry of Trade, RSFSR Ministry of Trade, USSR Ministry of Foreign Trade, USSR State Committee for Prices, and the USSR State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations.
Among our esteemed veterans are:
Heroes of the Soviet Union, Mr. Vladimir Nikolaevich Gaidukov and Mr. Evgeny Fedorovich Monakhov,
78 participants in the Moscow battle,
24 participants in the Stalingrad battle,
29 participants in the Kursk battle, 
41 participant in the Leningrade blockade breakage,
18 warriors who  assaulted Berlin.
Work of the Veterans Council is managed by war participants Vladimir Vassilievich Telegin, Vsevolod Pavlovich Shimansky and Victor Mikhailovich Ivanov.
The management of the Ministry keeps in constant touch with the Veterans Council and to provide  any assistance within its powers. Perhaps we fail to fully meet the needs of each of you but we seek not to leave any of the veterans without attention.
I have adopted and will meticulously fulfill the decision as to provision of social assistance to our veterans by the Ministry systemically, irrespective of anniversaries.
However, the 60^th Anniversary of the Victory is an exceptional event, and we tried to provide you with some extra assistance, including medical services. I hope that  378 veterans to whom we provided an opportunity to go to the Voronovo sanatorium had a good rest and improved their health.
In addition, we would like the 60^th anniversary of the Great Victory to remain in historic annals and in your memory. To this end, we published a special book of memories of the war participants and the rear workers and produced a memorable sign of the Russian Ministry for Economic Development and Trade.
They will be handed over to each veteran, including to those who, for some reasons, could not come to the Ministry today.
Now I ask the activists of our veteran organization to  go up to the stage:
Vladimir Vasilievich TELEGIN
Vsevolod Pavlovich SHIMANSKY
Victor Mikhailovich IVANOV
Valentina Ivanovna TOLSKAYA
Victor Vasilievich DORODNY
Nikolay Ivanovich MOSKOVKIN
Sergey Sergeevich LARIKOV

Dear veterans, 

Please be the first to whom I will hand over memorable gorgets and books specially published for this anniversary …