The opening ceremony has gathered representatives of the Russian Embassy and local Rossotrudnichestvo affiliate, Russian language teachers in Japan and Russian linguists.
The Russkiy Mir Foundation handed over to the Russian center around 1,000 books and multimedia resources. The set includes Russian literature and science books, as well as text books. We can say that the center is fully equipped technically.
Previously there was only one Russian center in Japan located in the city of Hakodate on the Hokkaido island; the center was founded on the basis of the Far East Federal University.
Russian centers are being created all around the world in the partnership with the leading educational institutions; as of today, there are more than 100 such centers. Their main goal is to promote Russian language and culture, to support Russian language courses, and to improve the intercultural dialogue. Together with the Russian language courses, centers organizer lectures, events and exhibitions dedicated to cultural events, and prepare students to the “Russian as foreign language”, organize scientific seminars and conferences.
Interest to Russian language and art remains pretty high in Japan; learning the anguage of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov is a very prestigious task. Russian is tought in more than 100 universities; however, the majority of Russian courses at Japanese universities are not obligatory.
