On May 29, 2009, the Gorbachev Foundation hosted ‘Roosevelt and Obama: Confronting the Economic Crisis’ conference. The international conference, co-organized with the United States Embassy in Moscow, USAID-Russia, the National Democratic Institute (US), and the Carnegie Moscow Center, looked at the current economic crisis from the historical and economic perspectives. It was opened with speeches by Mikhail Gorbachev and Eric S. Rubin, Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Moscow.

Speakers at the conference included Michael Kazin, Professor in the Department of History at Georgetown University; Yury Rogulev, Director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Foundation for United States Studies at Moscow State Unviersity; James R. Barth, Professor at Auburn University; and Vladimir Mau, Rector of the Academy of National Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation.

The conference was attended by scholars, diplomats, public figures, students and post-graduate students from Moscow’s leading universities, who actively participated in the debate that followed the speeches.

The speeches made at the conference will be posted at the Gorbachev Foundation’s website and published as a brochure.