The elders of the university Academic Council often recall the meeting of the council at the beginning of 1998, where then Vice-Governor Vyacheslav Volodin proposed to construct a new building at the university campus. The proposal shocked the university in an amicable way. After all, the previous academic building was commissioned back in 1975, and the university was simply ‘suffocating’ from the lack of classrooms. The beautiful Building X was constructed. This was the beginning. Then Building XI was constructed (and Volodin solved serious problems with financing) and commissioned in the fall of 2005. At the beginning of 2008, the construction of the huge Building XII with its own assembly and sports halls was completed, and it became a comfortable home for seven faculties and institutes of the university. Later SSU acquired the Young Researcher House, sports and entertainment centres with swimming pools in its branches in Balashov and Saratov.

It is worth mentioning the establishment of Pre-University. The whole project of the boarding school and its implementation is the result of Volodin's constant patronage.

Today, with the constant supervision of these issues by Vyacheslav Volodin, the university is preparing to transform its Botanical Garden and turn it into a large-scale research centre and – at the same time – into an attractive urban venue open to everyone. The next step is to implement another Volodin's project – the opening of a pedagogical college in Atkarsk, which will also become a part of our university. Finally, it was Volodin who initiated the establishment of the Faculty of Fundamental Medicine and Medical Technologies at SSU, which summarises the results of our research in innovative medicine and at the same time gives new perspectives both for fundamental science and for training personnel in new medical spheres, which Saratov Region is in a crying need of.

This list is only a visible part of what Vyacheslav Volodin has done for Saratov University. We know that he is constantly supporting other universities in the city. Volodin's attention to higher education is understandable. And it can be explained not only by its high state status, which implies an understanding how significant this sphere is for the progress of the country, but also by the fact that a great part of the life of Doctor of Law, Professor Vyacheslav Volodina is associated with teaching.

I recalled about it all, of course, by no coincidence. I reminded about it so that those who would hear or see the provocative film about Volodin that appeared on the internet would correlate his practical affairs from equipping ambulance stations with vehicles to the appearance of Gagarin International Airport in Saratov, from the improvement of cities and villages in the region to helping defrauded equity holders, from supporting business to attracting investments to the region, and much, much more, with the cut of some episodes proposed in the film and their clearly biased interpretation.

Probably, you have to live in Saratov for a long time in order to understand and appreciate what Volodin has done for his homeland over the years. And not in the last month before the elections, as, unfortunately, sometimes it happens but over the past two decades.

Bright and strong personalities always have enemies and ill-wishers. How easy is it to say nasty things about the leaders, compromise them with a couple of well-known tricks, edit footage from recordings of different times, take what was said on one occasion and apply it to another context, or just ... rattle about.

Here is a case of an obvious journalistic hoax launched against Vyacheslav Volodin, an example of which one can teach future wordsmiths about how ‘it is prohibited’ to present the material, how unhelpful it is to extort analytical attempts from oneself, how unaesthetic it is to slobber the strings tugged in different places and sew some dirt out of them. Everything goes to work: both an old grandmother grateful to Volodin for her help and a girl student who sincerely admired the interest that Volodin showed to students.

For certain parties, defaming opponents is the only thing left in their arsenal. But they do not understand that the main addressees of the replicated but low-quality and vulgar filmmaking – Saratov and its environs – will definitely not appreciate this video.

We have known Volodin for a long time, we see his deeds. We trust Volodin!

Rector of Saratov State University

Aleksei Chumachenko