On September,22 in Kremlin the Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated crews of Airat Mardeev and Dmitry Sotnikov with their win in the Silk Way Rally-2016. On the meeting also were present the Chairman of the Management Committee (CEO) of PJSC Gazprom Alexey Miller and the General Director of PJSC KAMAZ Sergey Kogogin (PJSC Gazprom has become a general partner of the Silk Way Rally for three years. PJSC KAMAZ also was a partner of this project).
“I am happy to welcome you to Moscow, to the Kremlin, and to congratulate you on your strong victory in such a tough competition as the Silk Way Rally,”-said Vladimir Putin, opening the meeting.
The President mentioned collaboration of Russian-Chinese racers within one crew that performed in one KAMAZ truck (Crew #315 pilot Hou Hongning, navigator Shen Xin and mechanic Andrey Mokeev), he also said about challenge of the silk Way Rally: “It is fascinating that this is the first time you have employed the mixed crew format of cooperation and competition. One of the vehicles had a crew made up of Russian and Chinese racers. This is also a very good sign, of course. Judging by what I saw and read, the Silk Way Rally turned out to be even more difficult that the Paris – Dakar. The vehicles were faultless, as much as it is possible. I saw that there were a number of hard situations on the track. I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, congratulate you and wish you new success.”
Vladimir Chagin, the Silk Way Rally project leader, reported about the race: “Mr President, first of all, we are grateful to you for finding the time to meet with us despite your extremely busy schedule. Your appreciation of our work, our efforts and results is very important to us. We are very happy that this year the KAMAZ-Master team did not disappoint its fans and partners: we won the first and second places. And, of course, it has a special significance to us that we managed to complete a race on such a long route embracing two continents and three countries. We are very grateful to you for supporting the route Mr Miller stretched to the east, saying let us have more, let us go bigger. The three nations’ governments gave us all the necessary assistance, and within a few months a tremendous amount of work had been completed on the organisation of the project. Everything went well.”
The sixth international ‘Silk Way Rally-2016. Moscow-Beijing’ went from 8 till 24 July on the territories of Russia and China and through the territory of Kazakhstan. The total length was record – 10 734 km that the crews passed for two weeks and a half.
Speaking about the race results The Chairman of the Management Committee (CEO) of PJSC Gazprom Alexey Miller mentioned that such big projects attract sportsmen from all over the world, create positive reputation of the Russian Federation and provide the basis for cooperation with countries in various areas.
In the end of the meeting Vladimir Chagin reported the President about course of work for the next edition of the international “Silk Way Rally-2017. Moscow-Beijing” which will take place the next July. The route details will go public in the nearest future.
Foto Kremlin.ru
