The most unexpected and extremely cool part of Russian Internet Forum was an arriving of President-Elect of Russia Dmitry Medvedev on this event. 450 from 2846 participants of this Forum could hear Medvedev’s speech. Here is an official stenogram  in unofficial translation:

DM: “Good afternoon dear friends, dear colleagues! I don’t think I will surprise you, but nevertheless I will say some words. First of all I would like to thank you for inviting me. This is indeed the most trustworthy forum of Runet. And it’s very good that it has become a tradition.

Nowadays Russian segment has quite strong positions in the global net. This is a source of information and, as a matter of fact, quintessence of freedom of self-expression inherent in Internet in general.

During the last 8 years Internet audience has increased in 10 times, and nowadays around 40 million people class themselves as Internet users, Runet users. I think that this number is very good, because when I started to use Internet (it was nearly 12 years ago) I could not imagine that in short enough time (I mean historically short time) one third of our country will use Internet. And it is obvious that the matter concerns permanent and high-grade users.

Traffic and e-commerce are growing rapidly. During the exhibition we started to discuss, what is the amount e-commerce in Runet. There is information that 50 billion rubles. The total amount of payments in Internet from Runet is more than 300 billion rubles – by some estimations.  

The amount of web production market – around 2,5 billion rubles, advertising market is more than 11 billion rubles and it’s growing rapidly.

A considerable amount of money was spent in 8 years, probably a bit less that abroad, but still money was spent. This includes money from the State budget for financing socially important projects. Some of them are well known like “Gramota.ru“. The promotion of online higher education has been started and a big number of educational resources created. But on the other hand we understand that it is just the beginning.

There is a range of State services; these are such services that can be used by citizens without queuing, in the most convenient way for them. In my point of view, now it’s important to connect these services with normative documents that are used in the State office, to make sure that online services be accepted in the same way as traditional paper documents and with the same level of trust. For this we need to create an appropriate legislative basis. 

E-trading for the State needs also has started and it was necessary to do that. No use to mention that our traditional media became online as well and online versions are used as much as their traditional form.

Also there are exceptionally interesting social services, created by private business, they are well known: “Odnoklassniki.ru”, “Vkontakte.ru”. Yesterday I saw there are around 10 million users in “Odnoklassniki.ru“. I found 630 people with the name Dmitry Medvedev, and part of them look much like me, simply the same face. And.. that’s good!

What can be the goal of our further work? This is, certainly, making quality content for all services, all Runet products, technical and technological advance of Runet, so that our segment keeps up with foreign analogues. This is, by the way, a joint task, task for state, private business, maybe task for everybody who is in this hall today.

There is a very subtle point about correlation of freedom of word and responsibility. I won’t make any banal remarks, but I think that an answer to this question is quite simple. It is necessary to obey the law everywhere, including Internet, and not to do actions that directly contradict Criminal Code. This is obvious.

But at the same time State has to have a calm and loyal position in this context because this segment, this business is developing. If we are not speaking about crimes all other activities, which do not contradict with the law, should be welcomed. That’s why we exclude Internet-providing from the list of so called strategic industries.

There is one more important topic: dialog between internet community and government authorities, as a matter of facts that is what we are doing today. I think that it needs to continue in future, and, as I have already said, State has to act with correctness but at the same time to assert appropriate rules. And I know that nowadays many government officials get information from the Net. But I believe that almost every government official must have a PC with Internet access and s/he has to be a high-grade Runet and Internet user. Only in that case s/he will be able to acquire all necessary skills for communication in the informational environment, all necessary informational products.

I would like to wish you success. I think that this Forum is to achieve those important aims that it has set. All the best!”