Key CIS leaders grace the Russian President's annual Cup Horserace event

The presidents of five of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Moldavia and Tajikistan, as well as the heads of the newly formed South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Eduard Kokoity and Sergey Bagapsh, visited the Russian capital last month, where together with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, were the key guests of honor at the famous Horserace Competition held annually under the patronage of the Russian government. 

This year, the total prize fund of the annual social sporting event amounted to record 7mln.rubs, half of which went to the stallion, named ‘Monomakh,’ from the Donskoy horse farm in the Rostov Region. The stallion claimed the first spot in cut-throat competition with other challengers that was decided with the aid of technical gadgets. 

Naturally, such busy people as heads of states could not but use this opportunity for holding bi-and multilateral meetings and negotiations with their counterparts. For example, President Medvedev had separate bilateral talks with the presidents of Kazakhstan, Moldavia and Tadjikistan as well as trilateral negotiations with the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents. The topics on the agenda varied from purely economic and political issues in the first case, to strategic policy measures for a peaceful regulation of the recalcitrant Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the achievement of sustainable stability in the Caucasian region as a whole with the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents.