MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. It is not correct to say that the grass is always greener on the other side, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the students of Moscow State University (MSU).
"There is a saying that ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’ but in fact there is no place like home," the president noted. "I myself worked abroad for almost five years and I know what it is like," he explained.
Putin admitted that foreign countries "have many things that we don’t have."
"There is a rule in life: if we respect someone, then we should accept that they are better than we are in some regard, and it is often true. However, if we look at it in a comprehensive manner, then we will see that there is no place on this earth more dear to us than our native country," he elaborated.
In Putin’s opinion, "wherever we are, if we are not at home, we will always feel alien because those places lack the things that tie a person to his land - a land where you were born and grew up, where everybody speaks your mother language and you understand all the smallest details so you don’t have to look anything up in a dictionary."
"I have some acquaintances, even close friends, who speak foreign languages as if they were their mother tongue, but nonetheless, they are not," Putin added.
According to him, "this does not mean that we should cut all ties with the outer world and live like in a cocoon, we should be open to the world." "Education is a sphere that gives people an opportunity to be open, to soak up all the best knowledge and achieve the best results, this is what you should aim for," the president told the students.