K Govindan Nair, former Professor and Head, Department of Russian, University of Kerala, has won the Pushkin Award of the Russian Federation.
A letter regarding this was received from the President of the Russian Federation. Pushkin Award is the honour given by Russian Federation to a citizen of India for overall contribution in popularisation of Russian culture, language and literature.
With over 40 years experience in popularisation of Russian language, K Govindan Nair is presently the Head of Russian Language Institute, Russian Culture Centre, Thiruvananthapuram. He has translated many books from Russian to Malayalam and English.
He is the first Keralite to get a PhD in Russian literature and first Indian teacher in the Department of Russian, University of Kerala, and founder editor of the ‘Journal of Russian Studies’ published by Department of Russian, University of
Kerala. He also heads the Russian Speakers Forum at Russian Cultural Centre. Govindan Nair also introduced a new Russian learning course through IT@School.
He is the secretary of Comparative Literature Forum, Thiruvananthapuram for the last 15 years.