On 16 March, Moscow House of Nationalities hosted a research conference “Russia and Central Asia in the 21st century. Prospects of economic and humanitarian cooperation”. It was organized by the Uzbek autonomy of Moscow, International project “Festival of the Eastern Arts. The Cult of Pilaf”, Russian State University for the Humanities, and Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The agenda of the conference included possible development of cooperation in the fields of education, science and culture; support of compatriots abroad and development of the “people’s democracy”, as well as issues and prospects of economic cooperation between Russia and Central Asia.
The organizers hope such meeting to become a platform to share knowledge and opinions on key issues of cooperation. This was a very practical event – the majority of speeches were followed by offers and recommendations on how to strengthen links between Russia and Central Asia.
Maria Mokhovikova, the press secretary of the Russkiy Mir Foundation, presented programs on teaching the Russian language and promoting Russian education in the region. In her speech, she mentioned ten new Russian Centers and seven Russkiy Mir Foundation cabinets opened in Central Asia. The Foundation has a system of grants to support projects of Russian and foreign NGOs on teaching the Russian language, promoting Russian culture and developing bilateral humanitarian cooperation.
With the help of leading Russian and foreign specialists in Russian philology, the Foundation develops and implements projects on teaching the Russian language and literature, organizing further training of teachers, improving work of Russian schools and Russian language courses. One of the programs allows Russian university staff to teach at foreign universities – today, this program is being implemented within 18 institution in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Other projects include publishing projects, support of partner organizations in opening Unified State Exam station, and many others. The presentation proved to be interesting for the participants, and was followed by questions of the Uzbek and Turkmen colleagues.
