OREANDA-NEWS. On 26 February 2009 was announced, that prior to the meeting the head of state visited a juvenile prison in Vologda, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) northeast of Moscow. The correctional facility has 134 inmates aged 14-18. The facility has a school and vocational training establishment, providing training in four different trades: car mechanic, electric welder, boiler-house engineer, and fitter.

Mr. Medvedev visited the classrooms, dormitories, canteen and workshops, and also the Church of the Veil of the Holy Mother of God located on the territory of the Juvenile Correctional Facility.

During the meeting of the State Council Presidium held in the local government Russia's president came out with an ambitious wish list for improvements in the country's prison system. Medvedev said that conditions in Russia's pretrial detention centers should be more humane and laws governing punishment should be brought into line with international standards. Mr. Medvedev also indicated the need to draw up effective programmes for former prisoners' social rehabilitation.

Mr. Medvedev emphasized that today we must talk about the perfection of court practice, the process of handing down sentences in different cases, and in particular about the issue of intervening, for example through detention on remand for low level and moderate crimes. He stressed that we should discuss this subject, and that we could consider alternative punishments, which do not involve depriving the individual of their liberty, and which wholly correspond to our policy in this area.

The Russian President talked about special and effective social rehabilitation for those people who have served their time. The head of state also considered what is called the repeated relapse into crime. There is a clear, direct link between these relapses into criminality, and those measures of social rehabilitation that are taken.

One more subject that was discussed at the meeting is the improvement of wages, social protection, and professional training for penal system staff.

Dmitry Medvedev also met with Governor of Vologda Region Vyacheslav Pozgalyov. He wondered what the local government was doing to increase the number of jobs, in order to deal with employment as a whole, and the development of small businesses.

Mr. Pozgalyov said in part that the regional government has a programme which takes account of three important areas. The first is job retention, the second is job creation, and the third is the provision of social support for those who have, in spite of everything, been left without work.

"Job protection is the main issue we face today. That's why we have signed an agreement with businesses in our region, including agrarians, industrialists, trade unions, and the authorities, in which we set out the task - of doing everything we could to avoid making people redundant. In order to do everything we can to make things easier for enterprises, we are helping them with state orders, giving them the means and resources, and bringing the social sphere into the remit of the regional budget", said Vyacheslav Pozgalyov.

The most important question is that of the creation of new working places, and here the local authorities are pinning their hopes on the development of small business. The Vologda Oblast Government made the decision to lower the tax on small business, to lower the rent payments, to provide grants for new job creation (RUR 300 ths to establish new production).

Russia's President approved of the initiatives of the Vologda Government.

On a visit to Vologda the head of state also had a look at the famous collection of Vologda lacework.

The museum collections within the Vologda Kremlin site (which dates from the 16-19 centuries) comprise over 400 thousand items, including some of the most ancient icons, manuscripts and old printed books, and pieces by great artists of Vologda.