Medvedev to travel to Vladivostok to review preps for APEC summit.

MOSCOW, June 29 (Itar-Tass) -- On Wednesday, at the close of working
meetings in Moscow, President Dmitry Medvedev will travel to Vladivostok
to chair a conference on preparations for an Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) summit that Russia is to play host to in 2012,
presidential press secretary Natalia Timakova announced.
"The President will hold a conference on preparations for the APEC
summit. He is to make a helicopter tour of the summit facilities that are
under construction, first of all, the bridge (which connects the mainland
and the Russkiy Island where a number of forum events are to take place),
as well as the Far Eastern University campus which will be the main place
for forum proceedings," the press secretary said.
In the grounds of the University campus, the Head of State will confer
with those who are responsible for preparations for the APEC summit.
Medvedev visited Vladivostok last year. In July 2010 he attended
festivities on the occasion of the city's 150th jubilee, and held a series
of meetings, including those dealing with preparartions for the APEC
summit.
Vladivostok had been founded in 1860. A military post consisting of
forty soldiers had been stationed on the shore of bay in the Gulf of Peter
the Great by the crew of the Russian sailing-ship Manchzhur (Manchur). Two
years later the post had been already referred to as a port. In 1870,
Vladivostok had been recognized to be a town and in 1871 an Imperial
Decree had been issued to transfer the main base of the Siberian naval
flotilla to the area.
Nowadays Vladivostok is the largest city in the Primorsky (maritime)
territory with a population of 604,500. The city is also the main base of
Russia's Pacific Fleet. .