Russia and Vietnam are getting closer together
Many important events in Russia-Vietnam relations took place in May 2018. Some of them happened for the first time.
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| Russia and Vietnam are getting closer together |
Speaking for the first time at the opening ceremony of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum was a representative of the Vietnamese leadership - Mr. Nguyen Van Binh, Politburo member, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, Head of the Central Economic Commission of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
SPIEF-2018 achieved a record number and value of cooperation agreements signed, among them an agreement between the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RFPI) and Vietnam's TH Group on the construction of two dairy plants in the Kaluga and Moscow regions, with a total investment value of 633 million USD. In addition, on May 25, a group of Vietnamese businessmen in St. Petersburg signed an agreement on the reconstruction of a hotel complex in the city center with an investment value of 10 million USD, the ceremony was attended by Vietnamese Ambassador to Russia Ngo Duc Manh.
A week earlier, St. Petersburg had welcomed a Vietnamese delegation led by Comrade Nguyen Thien Nhan, Politburo member and Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee. The delegation members had participated in the Russia-Vietnam cultural and business forum held on the occasion of the 95th anniversary of Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc's arrival in Petrograd and the 128th anniversary of President Ho Chi Minh's birthday. The two sister cities had signed a cooperation roadmap. The program of the visit to St. Petersburg was very rich. The delegation members were very interested in cooperation in the fields of business, medicine, and cyber security.
They were introduced to the successes of St. Petersburg doctors in the field of cancer treatment with proton therapy, which, unlike similar methods, does not have terrible side effects, such as destroying the body. Vietnamese patients can be treated in St. Petersburg, where cancer treatment costs are much cheaper than in Western countries.
St. Petersburg’s experience in water purification is also useful for Vietnam. Urban treatment facilities make 98% of the city’s water suitable for drinking, evidenced by the fact that inspectors never accept bribes — shrimps. St. Petersburg can also share its experience in a very important area for Vietnam — cybersecurity. It should be noted that in the recently published Global Cybersecurity Index, Russia ranked 10th and Vietnam 101st.
"This year, St. Petersburg students will do their internship in Ho Chi Minh City for the first time in many years, — said Professor Vladimir Kolotov, Head of the Department of History of the Far East, Director of the Ho Chi Minh Institute of the Faculty of Oriental Studies — St. Petersburg State University. — St. Petersburg University has signed long-term cooperation agreements with a number of universities in South Vietnam. This is very important for Russia's Vietnam studies. Residents of Ho Chi Minh City — the economic center of the country — speak the southern dialect, and Russians must be able to speak it.
This motto. We will cooperate with Ho Chi Minh City University in the field of research on the spiritual legacy of President Ho Chi Minh, the Eurasian arc of instability, regional security, and the issues of the East Sea.
Nguyen Van Binh at SPIEF-2018
"This is very important," said Grigory Lokshin, a leading researcher from the Institute of the Far East, because not only many Vietnamese people, but also many Vietnamese scientists do not understand the content of Russia's policy in Southeast Asia. For its part, Russia wants to study the ideology of the Communist Party of Vietnam in building a market economy, because Vietnam has achieved great success in this field."
Another important event took place "for the first time". In May of this year, for the first time in 25 years, the famous Russian magazine "Foreign Literature", which specializes in introducing new works by foreign authors to its readers, published the short story "American Hamlet" by Nguyen Thi Thu Tran, the Russian translation is by Igor Britov. The plot is comparable to a classic play: during the war, a Vietnamese girl falls in love with an American, and together they save the life of a Vietnamese friend. In the end, all the secrets are revealed when old acquaintances meet after the war in a completely changed Vietnam.
"Modern Vietnamese literature deserves to be introduced to Russian readers, and Vietnam should try to have as many Vietnamese literary works translated into Russian as possible," — this is the opinion of Mr. Igor Britov, a famous Russian journalist and translator, author of textbooks teaching basic theory of Vietnamese literature into Russian.
