page_title: Yaroslavl
section_title: Global Policy Forum
hierarchical_section_title: Yaroslavl / Travel and culture / Global Policy Forum
caption_attribution_description: English: Turkish president Abdullah Gül and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev
context_page_description: Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located 250 kilometers northeast of Moscow. The historic part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl rivers. It is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities northeast of Moscow that have played an important role in Russian history. In 2010, the city had a population of 591,486.
context_section_description: In recent years Yaroslavl have become well known for the high-level political discourse it has hosted under the auspices of the Yaroslavl Global Policy Forum. This event, organised by the Russian government, and with the backing of President Dmitry Medvedev, has been running since 2009 and represents one of the highest level political-diplomatic forums in the world today. It is the largest political science event organised in Russia, and is held on an annual basis, with a number of foreign officials appearing as participants each year. In the past for example, the French and Italian prime ministers Francois Fillon and Silvio Berlusconi have been guests, as well as Spanish prime minister Jose Zapatero.
  In 2011 Turkish president Abdullah Gül was received as a guest participant by the Russian authorities.
  Yaroslavl was chosen to host the event due to its thousand-year history of being a meeting point for people of all cultures, a significant trading post, and its former status as Russia's second largest city, within which a great number of foreign embassies were situated. The award of this forum to the city coincided with the city's millennium celebrations and thus it is commonly viewed by residents to have been a gift from the Russian president to the city which has helped raise the city's global profile.
  In 2011 this event became headline news in a number of countries due to the unfortunate events which led to the deaths of around forty people (players, support staff, and air crew) from Yaroslavl's 'Lokomotiv' Ice Hockey team. President Medvedev was, at the time of the crash, attending the conference at Lokomotiv's home stadium 'Arena 2000', and specially postponed a number of important meetings to make sure he could travel to the crash site and meet with crash victims' relatives. Later Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin also arrived in the city to pay his condolences.
caption: President Dmitry Medvedev converses with Turkish president Abdullah Gül at the 2011 Yaroslavl Global Policy Forum
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