A meeting of Russian President’s spouse Lyudmila Putina with the teaching staff and students of the Baku Slavonic University was held in its assembly hall on September 20.

Warmly welcoming the guest and accompanying delegation, Rector Kamil Abdullayev told in detail about the history of the Baku Slavonic University, its links with foreign Universities, and stressed that participants of this meeting are those who value Russian culture and language.

Speaking of the centuries-old friendship and good-neighboring of our countries, the Rector reminded that Azerbaijan was the first country President of Russia Vladimir Putin had paid his first official visit to that indicates particular attitude of the Russian leadership to this country. At the same time, Prof. K.Abdullayev said, one cannot but mention that it was the result of the personal friendship of the two presidents - H.E. Mr. Hedar Aliyev and H.E. Mr. Vladimir Putin.

The orator also pointed out the historical role of the Russian language in Azerbaijan as that of interethnic communication. It was mentioned that 29 secondary purely Russian-language schools, 363 secondary schools containing Russian-language sections; over 100 thousand people study in Russian. The process of teaching Russian financed form the state budget was described by him as a part of the state policy.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was first to received the title of Honorary Doctor of the University, and gave us a great pleasure that the Head of the greatest Slavonic state described our University as the unique educational establishment having no analogues neither in the post-soviet space nor over the world,” he said.

In her turn, Mrs. Putina warmly greeted the meeting participants, promised to help in opening an affiliate of the Center for Russian Language Development under the Baku Slavonic University, thanked for the invitation to visit the University, and expressed her admiration to Azerbaijan people and President Heydar Aliyev for respectful and careful attitude towards the Russian language and culture.