The acting Polish president has awarded medals to firefighters who worked at the site a plane crash that killed Polish president Lech Kaczynski, a spokesman for the emergency services in the western Russian city of Smolensk said on Friday.
Bronislaw Komorowski "thanked from the bottom of his heart" those who participated in the operation. The medals, which were awarded to firefighters Roman Kryukov and Dmitry Nikonov, were given "as a sign of deep gratitude," the spokesman said.
The award ceremony was held at the Polish embassy in Moscow. The event was also attended by the head of a Smolensk region firefighting department and the deputy heads of a local firefighting service.
On April 10, a plane carrying Kaczynski, his wife, 88 officials and eight crew members crashed en route to Smolensk, where ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre of 20,000 Polish officers by NKVD Soviet secret police in the nearby Katyn forest were due to be held. The plane hit the top of trees as it attempted to land in thick fog.
Hundreds of Russian firefighters were dispatched to the scene just minutes after the crash and quickly extinguished the fire, but there were no survivors.
The Katyn massacre was the cause of bad relations between Poland and Russia for decades. Compassion shown by Russian leaders and ordinary Russians to the Smolensk air crash has helped to mitigate tensions on the subject .
Last month, Polish Interior Minister Jerzy Miller thanked Russian Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu for the Russia's help after the crash.
Miller expressed gratitude to the Russian people for their sympathy in the aftermath of the tragedy.
"Their sincere empathy deeply touched the hearts of Poles and will rest in our memory for a long time," he said.
MOSCOW, May 14 (RIA Novosti)
