Alexander Ageev’s opening remarks.

Winners of the program “Characters of the century” by results of 2010.

We sweated, as those slaves in the galleys under tons of volcanic ash, we floated through oil spills, terrorist attacks and global crises, overcoming fires and icy rains, we were re-inventing Russia and the world just to find ourselves in 2010 in the starting point.

Our astronauts — it is all an ostentation. There can be no people in the space. Only 10 percent of the earth’s surface, where there is a certain pressure and temperature drop, are suitable for comfortable living. And beyond these 10 percent bone tissue degrades.

In my opinion, the market overcomes the state because they put an equals sign between business and economy. Business exists within the economy, but not equals to it. And only the state responsible for the economy and for the fates of people, as opposed to business, responsible only for the fate of profits, is capable to represent the interests of society as a whole.

People love animals, because it is easier with them. This is a serious ethical issue — we have now become more hard-hearted to each other, but we try to humanize our relations with animals.

Today we are witnessing the sunset of the American empire — the Americans will not be able to get out of the pit into which they have fallen. And in Russia the USA is still considered as the center of the world.

At present only the United States correspond in full to the level of a superpower. Russia is still close to this level, but by such indicators as production of weapons in the whole spectrum of modern systems, the strength of the armed forces and equipment of high-precision weapons, advanced systems of control and communication there is a substantial gap with the U.S.

Mineral resources of our country — a national treasure, the volume and value of which does not depend on political collisions!

Forty years ago, Alvin and Heidi Toffler recognized that the pace of environmental change was rapidly accelerating and threatened to overwhelm the relatively slow pace of human response.