gerhart steve live from moscow the headlines egyptians are triumphant as weeks of mass on ross finally see hosni mubarak step down leaving the military in power but there are concerns that the country's future is now under the control of a force largely financed by washington. as the twenty two old presidential race nears in the u.s. the republican party's biggest gathering of the year has given us a sneak peek at who might become the next american leader billionaire donald trump was among those considering running for the country's top job. a melodic

alternative to south africa's ruseva ukraine's getting ready to follow the example of last summer's world cup hosts they plan to introduce found at the twenty twelve euro copy to an old mom against a rent that will have to spectate hers had to pay for. well in terms of things to do and see in russia the options are as vast as the country itself however poor infrastructure means that only extreme tourism is taking off next al gore know of talk to the president of the russian geographical society about ways to improve the situation. hello again a welcome to spotlight on r.t.i. malvern off and today my guest in the studio is shy. many russians are unaware of their historical heritage and the natural treasures. addressing their

russian geographical society prime minister putin said there are a lot of places in russia which can become popular tourist attractions but for infrastructure only for tourists so what can be done to improve the situation and why has the russian emergencies minister become the president of the russian geographical society here's. the russian geographical society's one of the oldest of its kind in the world established in the meet nineteenth century it set out to research the boss regions of russia today the task has been enlarged to popularizing russian culture and nature and environment protection the society is supported by the very top of the russian political elite its president who is also the emergencies minister with prime minister putin heading the board of trustees.

thank you for being with us today hello. michael well the first thing i'd like to ask you is why the emergencies minister and everyone in russia knows you as the mergence is minister. presides over the geographical society. is there some sort of emergency with geography. you know first of all it's very interesting. to you personally mentioning to me personally. i find it extremely interesting and the second reason is that this society probably the oldest non-governmental organization in our country. the one hundred sixty fifth anniversary last year. another reason is that it has a remarkably interesting history agree number over. an outstanding

people if you recall the famous russian audi's picture the meeting of the state council. eighty percent of the people for trade there were members of the russian geographical society members of the russian geographical society right. the society has reached traditions reach our conscious and it was this is europe's largest year graphical library containing four hundred forty thousand volumes in russia yes it was me if there was it in moscow and st petersburg petersburg yes it has archives of various famous travelers like preserve. them. well in the us media hollywood has a great impact on everything. because they have this fantastic film indiana jones you've probably seen it but they say she made this profession very popular. but what about russia do russians students dream of becoming

a traveling with even more everyone is thinking of you go into business. that's exactly why we have decided to address this issue any serious matter. if you consider all the trouble expeditions say over the past two centuries you will realise that we need to do our best to promote this work and not just the government. people to should encourage people to love their country. to explore their country to explore its nature it's just new cities. and crafts. you know there are many branches in geography for example economic geography. geographical statistics and so forth i'm pretty sure you know what i'm talking about the other was to i'm grateful to the people who launch such projects

is the my planet channel says they would thank you personally i consider it among the best projects of the recent years. so a good lawyer this channel received an award recently yes and i would like to congratulate them because they're really good investment it up they're doing a good job a very good job. with the board of trustees and its chairman. will award grants each year than we did that we needed last year and this year i think will come together even more maybe a pro but it don't want tell the legibility criteria for such support and overseas candidates yes they can they're eligible if they want to receive a grant and they knew to submit an application and we have a board of a very famous research travelers explorers into yog refers

and this commission there's board and they come together and consider the cations that is what all those applications like i want to go to the off to can photograph a whole there's no nocturnal like that a research project could go off course and applicants should state that purpose of their research it's subject matter it's expected outcomes and benefits and what the end product is whether it's a documentary or air report or a paper and expected cost perhaps naturally tradin clude expected costs this. well after the fall of the solvent union this name institutions fell apart and as far as i know many experts on the original history you were all left without support even though they were a unique specialists to this end when you clearly does the geographical society help them these days. through the creation of course. of

course in fact recently we had a meeting of the geographical society and we invited all those infuse e.-s. who preserve very museums i mean both theirs and their buildings and. i can give you a lot of examples for instance the. original history has the nicest building in town which was built with donations from the russian church graphical society and also from local merchants to governor another prominent figures including by the way descendants of the n.c. decemberists but it's the nicest building in the records. of course it's no longer belongs to the geographical society in houses the museum of regional history now. but they have preserved many of the traditions was thanks to those people you have

mentioned that there was these people who preserved the archives. and both the archives in the organisation in vladivostok there used to be a museum there too. much was lost during the soviet era and especially during the post soviet period. i think we'll start to recovering in revolving all that now. you're talking about history but times change don't they previously those expeditions you talk to mount were sent off to explore and fill in the blanks polis on geographic magazine. and first and foremost on russia's map it was in the middle of the nineteenth century when the world's map wasn't complete yet what about today is what are the goals of the russian geographical decided today school just. first of all our goal is to continue studying the wild nature both plants and animals of russia. this year we are running a big program on the arctic covering such aspects as environment protection at the

economic issues at the study of the foreign the wants ethnic minorities and their cultural traditions which need to be preserved. i think this is a noble goal. another goal is if you ask an average school student to d. how many ethnic groups live in our country they most probably wouldn't till you just see many more who would say i'm a most probably that. they're clever but the thing is every single athlete group has a unique culture in which goes back four centuries in a time they possess unique canny craft skills that will summarise fellowships are granted for this purpose by the way in particular the grants we shoot in two thousand and nine and two thousand and ten. and we do value the researchers who work in this area and promote this knowledge they should documentaries read books.

and know we are trying to revive the past. of the russian general graphical society that i see a good such as the scenic russia project of the nineteenth century. such things are really precious and i'm not talking about money. it's about giving our people and me that i may sound a bit to magic now giving our people as solid a feeling of motherland. in a weirdness. that this is my mother in law. that's what it's like. love it and how i. am i already and i would put the word father wise if you don't know your mother or. do you for you to love you. distribute the british well let's take a look at the history of russia's geographical exploration in

a report from spotlights on the demeter. here in moscow in the very heart of continental russia is a special place for seal lovers in seafarers the history of russia's navigation and geographical exploration is written on this wall these are the names of russia's coahuila says for example these play here is in memory of all the sea cheering of the first european never to set foot on southern no esca who won despite a food recall you have center in moscow the lead on down is what the famous russian traveller can say about places like those who the south pole and mt everest his circumnavigated the globe several times and we're still going to caution in this scene who will win both the spirit of adventure is something he must have inherited from jr reaches a version explores. in eighty three this was so two questions on their first ever circumnavigation of earth that's been the issue was headed by avon crews inch their

who later became one of the founders of the russian geographical society which in the shaded systematic exploration of the remote parts of the country among the most famous members were nikolai mickleham a quine who lived for a long time among native tribes of southeast asia and australia studying and describing their way of life when the cooperation of rural ski who discovered several previously unknown species including a wild horse named after him the soviet union promoted and encouraged exploration the russian plane needs of the arctic like meat or even proponent in who were the first to carry out scientific research on poor rice stations in the one nine hundred thirty s. became national heroes today in the computer technologies in space travel this still appear to be places to explore an earth like the seabed of the north pool which was for the first time reached by a group of russian scientists four years ago the spirit of adventure leads new

generations to new discoveries include new hope swallow thing is waiting for new names to be written on. time. mainly for the natural resources which means that they used to bring about benefits the right to say that she's days geographers are more concerned about environment protection than about the exploration of natural resources. and that's exactly why last year we reintroduced to the environmental aspect into the geographical society scope of work and by the way it was here before the lottery montu that russia's very first nature reserve. reserve was established on the initiative of the russian general graphical society says. the president of the russian pilgrim. side spotlight will be back we'll be back in the studio in less than a minute. some

. of. the men on. this street still keep seed secrets but now it's time to move feel the shooting of the soviet files nikita khrushchev's between black and white on oxy. well one one

deals with war for us to realize that this tremendous amounts of damage that have done not just human damage but damage the physical environment in which the battlefield takes place tremendous amounts of damage done by aerial bombs by napalm boy chemical city whether it's sonic boom city factory marine mammals or it's the burning oil field syria and iraq or destroyed corps reserves in the pacific for landing purposes the list just goes on and on the geneva conventions of nineteen forty nine states that there shall be taken in war to protect the involved against widespread long term and severe damage the united states although it is accepted almost all of the provisions protocol one has taken exception to that.

welcome back to spotlight i'm not just a reminder that my guest today in the studio here is sort of the president of the russian geographical society. missed a show in two thousand and ten russian geographical society held the international opting for and received a global public response would become a regular event you planning to conduct another forum this year and what do you think about these forums practical value in general and. you know it was our first project of this guy and we did it together with the area know with steam usage in secret and it proved that this kind of dialogue he's in great demand fury coliforms multo was the territory of dialogue our objective was to outline and

present our interests and discuss them with our neighbors in the arctic let us say that there were delegations from sixteen nations many interesting reports were presented and this brought about the common understanding that such discussions conferences to reports expeditions and the most importantly an exchange of opinions between we'll known public figures and politicians including heads of states and governments are something we very much need and so we made a decision to make it a manual event and right now we are busy preparing the next arctic forum in twenty eleven of russia one of your board members prime minister putin gave a speech at the last forum and he said some tough words every want to start a big thorough cleanup of the arctic and in the first place to get rid of the nuclear waste buried there has the work started yet did you hear the call of mr

putin here in russia we did and in other countries what about your colleagues. for other countries we haven't heard of any significant or specific. actions which would develop into a consistent program off cleaning up the arctic region. this is you know every country we have a look at its funds in the federal budget and sign contracts with companies which will work on this we project. the ministry of natural resources he's monitoring this work and naturally we to monitor the situation to see we are we are today in the arctic. the great. projects have been planned for this year. project is work in progress it's underway we're studying the migration path sign habitats of polar bears. this project is

underway and we expect it to continue. for the next you might know that we had a major expedition. which was led by the chairman of the board by the way. position managed to achieve the laws for this work will be continued this year we would like to send it begin a comprehensive expedition and i think that pretty soon possibly sometime in april we'll start screening candidates. students for russia's meteor universities to take part in the expedition to the new siberian islands it's a site for an incredibly interesting research in many different fields. that you cooperate closely with environmentalists you mentioned earlier that the work of protecting the environment is on your priority list. the environmentalists

have raised in the law now it's a lot of the news about the future plans of b.p. and ross knapp's to develop an oil field in the south and part of the car a c. at the powder does this project indeed present a serious environmental threat to that region or are they just being precautious but having seen the old out of cool. insured and say they're pretty cautious because of course any such a project involves a very serious preliminary research and analysis my x. and security specialists. specially after that incident in the gulf of mexico. in my opinion it was a huge environmental disaster. so talking of environment protection and environments. movements in general or the me. what i would call it could be politicized often marmont protection that's

a killer here with a good to know what i mean is that political landscape. being achieved so put it through environmental means. does this politicize ation of environment protection affect your work it seems that it does from the way you speak. don't you see it here so that environmental movements and the very idea of an environment protection gets more and more involved in the division or markets which get used as a tool to prevent a company or a nation from answering certain markets such as the hydrocarbons market. you might notice there during the discussion of c pipeline construction projects when building a gas pipeline for example the parties often resort to environmental arguments. among other things of course but the point i'm making is that when an environmental disaster happens people start throwing political slogans let me think that it's

interesting that you a politician you're a veteran minister say she is for you know one of our country's most influential politicians and yet you're against the politicization of environment protection. what does that mean for you your posts in the government and your role in the russian geographical society a completely different things but there isn't the issue back up with c. such as family and a career something like that. something like that is is possible at all the you think no no i have to admit it and naturally i'm very grateful to my colleagues at my main place of work for there are tremendous support including help in organizing expeditions because the ministries vast and comprehensive network of training and rescue centers as well as a great number of rescue squads are a unique resource we can use to ensure the safety and working conditions for our expeditions. that's something no other imagine she has i would think that's why it

is quite hard to separate these two jobs and when i talked about the body size they should open. arment protection i didn't mean that my membership in a political party or my position as a minister should have no impact on what i do at the russian geographical society god so you mean using environmental protection as political leverage. here that's exactly what i mean. yes that's exactly what i mean. you know it's a well known fact that there are many environmental organizations. that are actually becoming less and less concerned with environment and at the same time the more and more concerned with politics. what particular organizations do you mean. i would you rather not name them

because i don't want to advertise them. i would advise our people not to join those who are going to say because they are in misleading when people tell you you can't do these stories that is because it causes harm to the environment and your health . and they say this without any preliminary study or any research any examination. without engaging the independent x. spurts and even without conducting primitive laboratory tests they were good to us from was this always puts me but newman my gore. should let him play even one more question if he there have been reports that the russians or graphical society along with the into restrain will agency subliterate are going to develop ecotourism in russia but as any to. tell us more about this project really have such plans.

your european viewers probably know that there is such a thing as a greek culture and tourism in europe. when young people go to the countryside and we want to form they so. they harvest they take care of animals well in russia that would need stream tourism or other. variety of eco tourism. but in our country it's much more interesting. because we have the world's biggest a reserve war all freshwater in lake baikal. so why not send an expedition there. to help preserve the lake. and at the same time explored with what might harm it. or for example. we can arrange environmental expeditions to some

endangered polices. so that people can not only see something that was to some exotic places for example with their own eyes and at the same time. they would be able to longer people would balk them told people what is being done to make sure that industrial facilities pollute the environment so i think it's a promising project. thank you very much for being with us just a reminder that my guest today was sygate board president of the russian graphical society and that's it for from all of us here moving back with more forthcoming from what's going on. outside but until then stay on r.t. and take it.

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