Russian nationals from Baltic republics hold joint conference for first time in history

Public associations of Russian nationals from Baltic republics will hold a joint conference for the first time in history, chairman of the board of the Union of Russian Nationals' Associations in Estonia Sergei Sergeyev told RIA Novosti on Friday.

According to Mr. Sergeyev, the major purpose of the meeting is the building of effective cooperation between the associations and Russia's regions.

"We have close ties with the Kremlin authorities and with the Russian Foreign Ministry, but with other subjects of the Russian Federation and Russian ministries, we either do not have any contacts or they are very weak," Mr. Sergeyev believes.

"We hope that we will manage to conduct a serious and fruitful discussion on many sensitive, urgent, and, most importantly, common issues," he said.

According to Mr. Sergeyev, such issues include the consolidation of efforts aimed at solving various social and economic problems that concern non-native population of Baltic republics, in particular - the preservation of the Russian language and culture and the education in Russian.

Mr. Sergeyev said that among the participants and guests of the forum were leaders and activists of public associations of Russian nationals from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

In addition, officials from the Russian President's administration and various Russian ministries, large delegations from Moscow and Moscow region, St. Petersburg and Leningrad region, Pskov, Novgorod, Kaliningrad and Yaroslavl are scheduled to attend the conference.