Moscow. 10 October 2004. Today's inauguration is not just a cultural event. Ernst Neizvestny was one of the first people in the country to dare tell the regime that he disagreed with it. It cost him dearly. But for the country and its future that was very important. The powerful social movement in the 1980s—the drive for freedom and change—was based on what was achieved twenty years before by the so-called "men of the sixties", i.e. by Ernst Neizvestny and his comrades. The generation that defended the country during the Great Patriotic War then headed the battle against the dictatorship in their own country. That is why, whenever I had a chance to help Ernst Neizvestny in realizing his plans, I saw it as my absolute duty. The fact that today we have this sculpture seems to me to be of utmost importance. The spirit of the "men of the sixties", their principles, their honour,—all that is necessary to our country now—no less than back in the 1960s.

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