MOSCOW, January 25./TASS/. A ceremony to roll out the Year of Japan in Russia will be held at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater on May 26, the head of the Japanese Embassy’s Communication Department, Toshio Yamamoto, said on Thursday.
According to the Japanese diplomat, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Russian president are expected to attend the ceremony. "Certainly, the leaders of Russia and Japan will take part in the opening ceremony," he said.
"Numerous events in different sectors will be held across Russia throughout this year and even longer through efforts of the governments and with the participation of countries’ private organizations. There are also special events - the opening ceremony that will be held on May 26, and a major exhibition of Edo Period art, whose objects rarely leave Japan," the diplomat elaborated.
"Mutual visits by heads of our states and government officials have become more frequent over the recent years," he explained. "Cultural exchanges are gaining pace, but it is important to bolster exchanges amongst a maximally wide range of people in order to better utilize the potential of cultivating bilateral relations," Toshio Yamamoto said.
"This regards not just intergovernmental consultations, but also sports, the economy, science and education," he concluded.
This year - 2018 - has been declared the Russia-Japan Year of Culture. Among this year’s focal events is the exhibition of Japanese works created during the Edo Period (1603-1868) to be hosted by Moscow’s Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibit will open in autumn and will feature etchings that have never left Japan before. Sources from the Pushkin Museum said earlier that the exhibition would bring together 118 works of art, two of them having the status of national treasures.