You're reading: Medvedev: United Soviet people model is correct

MOSCOW - It would not be a shame to recollect certain Soviet models such as "the historical community - the united Soviet people," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told pensioners on Thursday.

He attended the meeting together with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

"We often criticize the former customs – everybody does that, including young and middle-aged people and senior citizens, – but there are some indisputable values which, I think, must be eternal," he said.

"For instance, our country had the historical community – the Soviet people," he said.

Somebody mocked that model and some were inspired by it, Medvedev said. "This way or another, the model worked. We were all friends, we communicated with each other, and that was an absolutely correct principle, which is now devoid of ideological connotations," he said.

That was a way of survival for people populating a big country, Medvedev said.

"Alas, the model failed due to well-known reasons and that is sad because the world has examples of the absolutely brilliant implementation of the ideas of people’s unity with national and cultural identities preserved. I believe we should not be ashamed of restoring the unifying models," he said.

It would be a mistake to call terror crimes nationalist, Medvedev said.

"There are plenty of cliches, but world experience shows that the most disastrous crimes are perpetrated by people who do not feel their national identity. Just recall the latest events: the majority of terror acts had no national or even religious roots although they were claimed to have such. Mostly, they were committed for money or by semi-zombied people," he said.

"Terrorists have no nationality. Even in this country terror acts are committed by different people. This means the problem is systemic; this is not a problem of one people, one nationality or one constituent of the Federation," Medvedev said.