The friendship between India and Russia is a model for the whole world, Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor has said.
Tharoor was speaking after inaugurating the closing ceremony of the 3rd Russian Festival of Literature, Language and Science here on Tuesday. The ties between India and Russia have a long history and the strategic partnership between the two nations is a time-tested one. Additionally, cultural exchange has served to strengthen the ties, Tharoor said.
He said that the contributions of Russia to world literature are substantial. Festivals such as the Russian Festival of Literature, Language and Science will serve to further bolster the relationship between the two countries, he said.
Tharoor presented this year’s Esenin Prize to Bengali writer and former union education secretary Achala Moulik. The award, instituted by the Russian Cultural Centre, the Esenin State Museum, Moscow, and the culture wing of the Russian Embassy, was presented to Moulik for her Bengali translations of Russian works. In addition to a play ‘Pushkin’s Last Poem’, she also has to her name a collection of articles on Lev Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky and works on Tolstoy’s relationships with India and Rabindranath Tagore’s Russian experiences.
The 3rd Russian Festival of Literature, Language and Science, which opened in October, was jointly organised by the Russkiy Mir Foundation and the Russian Cultural Centre in Thiruvananthapuram. The Russian Cultural Centre had also declared Thiruvananthapuram as the permanent venue for the festival. Russia’s consul general in Chennai Nikolai Listopadov, the head of the cultural wing of the Russian Embassy Fydor Rozovskiy and the regional head of Russkiy Mir Foundation Prof Georgi Toloraya spoke on the occasion. Russia’s honorary consul in Thiruvananthapuram Ratheesh C Nair proposed the vote of thanks.