Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear friends,

St Andrews Day in your company is always a pleasure, and I was looking forward to our international gathering of friends united by one Patron Saint.

Actually I do like the idea that the most cold and dark winter months are illuminated by a sequence of good traditional celebrations – All Hallows Eve in the end of October, St Andrews Day in the end of November, Hogmanay in the end of December and Burns Supper in the end of January. Scottish people know a lot of good ways to cheer-up!

 

And so do Russians and Greek. We have a phrase in Russian that says all. We claim that Greece has everything. And that is right just look at the sea and the mountains and the grapes and olives. A friend of mine told me that people in Greece always celebrate in joy: eat, drink and dance not to escape, but to engage fully with each other. Just consider as famously rich as the Greek language is, there is no specific word for hangover. Dear friends, please, correct me, if I am wrong, but my colleague, a seasoned diplomat told me that «This all quickly becomes your second nature, in fact, it is difficult to unlearn». I hope that we all will learn from our Greek friends tonight.

 

Add to this my personal interest in celebrating the occasion because of my name. Usually, if you asked most people what day it is today, chances are they'd say «Sunday» or «26 of November» or Black Friday Weekend. Not me. Sitting at the table with a quorum of the nations blessed by St Andrew it is hard to make any mistake.

I’ve recently seen a documentary about the history of Christianity. There was an episode when a journalist asked youngsters in the streets about the origins of the most famous saints like St Andrew and St Patrick, and some of them proudly answered that St Andrew was originally from St Andrews and St Patrick surely from Downpatrick. No-no I am not complaining about youth. Although I know that even great minds sometimes succumbed to that temptation. Do you remember this famous saying by Socrates: «The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise»? An ancient story, but I am sure even Socrates was not the first one to complain. By the way, I didn’t forget that my toast today is about Greece! The Socrates remark was to show you that few things in this world can be said which aren’t related to Greece, its history and culture.

Being a diplomat, I do a lot of public speaking, and since I arrived here in Scotland I took part in dozens of the St Andrews Dinners and Burns Suppers, which is definitely not a significant number for a true Scot, but in my humble opinion, it is not that bad for a foreign diplomat. However, I have to confess that this is the first time when the focus of my speech is neither on Scotland nor on Russia. Consider it my maiden speech, and St Andrew, please, do help me, they say you protect all the maidens!

Dear Greece and all Greek people, I am sure you know how much love and admiration we have for you in Russia. For centuries Russia and Greece have been connected not only by strong spiritual and historical bonds, but also by economic and cultural cooperation. If it was for a formal gathering I would have said that it is the common civilizational values, the Orthodox culture and sincere mutual sympathy that form a stable foundation for our partnership, which today continues to progressively develop.

Finally, I would like to remind you of an old good Hollywood film, a real masterpiece titled «Zorba the Greek». This was the film that gave birth to what we now know as the traditional Greek dance Sirtaki. The film was screened in the Soviet Union where it was overwhelmingly welcomed as in many other countries, and is still loved today in modern Russia. The protagonist Zorba is the reason for that. As far as I understand he is both very Greek and at the same time an archetypical world figure. He reveals Dionysian element and possesses the most valued gifts – good humor, love to other people and above all the inner freedom. I wish we all could experience it.

 

I’ve started my speech tonight from a lesson we must learn from Greece, and I will finish it with another one of this kind. What we should not forget is that friendship between people, families and nations is not made by officials, but by ordinary people who built up this friendship, quite often turning in not-so-ordinary people, and Greece gives us this example.

Please, raise your glasses for Greece and St Andrews!

Thank you for your attention.