The Centre devoted to the history of the Russian diplomatic service covers all stages of the establishment and development of Russian diplomacy, beginning with ancient Rus' and concluding with Russia's most recent activities in the international arena. The President toured the documents and materials on display and looked at some archival materials.
The President also looked at an exhibit of models of historical monuments in the Foreign Ministry. The President was struck by one project devoted to the Victims of Famine in the 1930s in the USSR. As he examined the project Dmitry Medvedev commented that attempts to accuse Russia of perpetrating the widespread famine that occurred in the USSR in the 1930s bear witness to an immoral approach to questions of political expediency. He referred to these events as the common misfortune of the Soviet peoples.
The exhibition also contained reproductions of the monuments that honour the Meeting on the Elba (the meeting between Soviet and American troops on 25 April 1945), the monument To the Pilots of the Normandy-Neman squadron (a squadron in which Soviet and French pilots fought the Nazis together), a monument to the Russian Varyag cruiser in Scotland, the monument in Pleven (Bulgaria) to General Mikhail Skobelev, a hero of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877–78 which helped liberate Bulgaria from Turkish rule, and the bust of Young Peter which is in the Royal History Museum in Brussels. The author of these reproductions of historical monuments is Vladimir Surovtsev.
At a meeting with young Foreign Minitry staff Dmitry Medvedev said that the coordinating role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the foreign policy work done by various Russian departments should be more active. He also discussed the difficulties facing young diplomats and said that two things are required to establish a diplomatic elite, namely normal working conditions, including normal renumeration, and the desire to serve the state, which occurs only if a person shares the ideology of the state.