NOVOSIB IRSK, August 7 (Itar-Tass) — Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has arrived by a special train in Novosibirsk as part of his business trip of a number of Siberian cities.
Novosibirsk, the largest urban center in Siberia with a population of around 1.5 million, is the last destination on the Prime Minister’s agenda. He has spent two days on the special train that has covered a distance of 1,732 km.
The train has twelve coaches, including the one equipped as a conference hall. Accompanying Medvedev is a party of 200 people – ministers, officials of protocol service, members of the security team, and personnel.
Right on the train, Medvedev held a two-hour conference on the development of railway tracks in Russia.
He also spoke to reporters on the first day of the trip. The press conference was held in the dining car, with Medvedev and his interlocutors drinking tea from the traditional glasses inserted in glass-holders.
He confessed to reporters his wish to cross the country by train from Moscow to Vladivostok some day – and necessarily in wintertime.
The special train operated by the Rossiya State Transport Company transports the highest government officials and is kept in permanent readiness for a mission.
The operating company and the railway controllers services had an especially knotty task this time as they had to fit the special train’s schedule into an extremely tightly packed traffic on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
They managed to cope with the job with pinpoint accuracy, and Medvedev’s train traversed a route consisting of Omsk, Tomsk, Leninsk-Kuznetsky, and Novosibirsk without intervening with the schedule of a single regular train.
In Novosibirsk, which is known as the heartland of science and research in Siberia, Medvedev is expected to visit the Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Center for Technological Support of the Novosibirsk Academy City Technology Park.
Also, Medvedev will take part in a session of the Expert Council for the Promotion of Entrepreneurship at Universities and Research Institutes.
As the leader of the United Russia party, Medvedev will meet with its local activists.
The last item on the itinerary of his trip is a conference on the development of regional passenger air routes.