Dear friends and colleagues!

I am delighted to welcome you to Volnoe Delo’s website. I established this Foundation in 2008 years to support social programs and initiatives that I think are important to Russia’s development.

The main goal of the Foundation is to improve the quality of life of those who live and work in the Russian regions where our companies are present. We are already actively supporting communities in 40 different regions.

I am in no doubt that Russia’s future depends on intellectual, creative and caring people meeting their potential. My goal is to create the conditions that allow this, through education and professional skills, to shape and strengthen the generation of people who are capable and willing to change the quality of life both of themselves and others.

Professionals who can build and manage technology are central to creating an intellectual class. Engineers are one of the five most sought-after professions in the world and that’s why most of our programs focus on the development of technical skills. In addition, we’ve set ourselves the task of strengthening Russia’s scientific potential and in doing so stemming our “brain drain”.

Another equally important challenge is to support cultural projects. Today we conduct work to preserve and promote the traditions of our people, to bring the best that we have in our country to the next generation, which, I hope, will be able to appreciate our contribution to the development of civilization and preservation of traditions.

The number of programmes run by the Foundation increases every year, the content also changes, but the overall approach is always the same – the focus on changing people’s lives for the better, their attitudes towards themselves and the world around them and on support of talent. That requires the collective and integrated efforts of those who are concerned about Russia’s future.

Oleg Deripaska, the founder of Volnoe Delo Foundation