MOSCOW, September 21 (Itar-Tass) — The Days of Vietnamese Culture are opening in Moscow on Wednesday. A concert of Vietnamese artists in the Maly Theatre will launch the events that until September 27 will familiarise residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg with the peculiarities of the national culture of this country.

According to the Vietnamese Ambassador to Russia Pham Xuan Son, the Days of Vietnamese Culture in Russia “is a very important event in relations between the two countries.” “In 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev paid an official visit to our country, and the agreements reached during his stay in Vietnam are being successfully put into practice,” he said. The ambassador added that the coming Days “will provide a unique opportunity for our peoples to better understand each other, feel the beauty of the national art, and, most importantly, to create conditions for friendly relations.”

Russian Culture Minister Alexander Avdeyev’s welcoming message to the Days participants says that “this is a return visit of the creative intelligentsia to Russia to last year’s Days of Russian Culture in Vietnam.” “The humanitarian, artistic, creative relationship between our two nations is decades old, and this visit of the guests gives a new impetus to bilateral mutually beneficial relations,” Avdeyev said.

In addition to the concert, which will officially open the Days, the photo exhibition Beauty of Vietnam at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Russia will be opened on Wednesday. The exhibition, according to organisers, “is to promote peace, understanding and dialogue between the creative communities on ways of future cooperation.”

A roundtable discussion on the issue “Russian Literature in Vietnam and Vietnamese literature in Russia” will also be held within the Days. The two countries’ writers will meet in the All-Russian Library for Foreign Literature to discuss prospects for their creative cooperation.

In addition, a week of Vietnamese films, as well as a presentation of the tourist program “Welcome to Vietnam” will be opened for Russians. Then the guests will go to St. Petersburg where Vietnamese artists will perform on the stage of the Kommisarzhevsky Drama Theatre. Among them - the Folk Instruments Ensemble of the State Conservatory, the Ensemble of National Dance and soloists of the Theatre of Pop Song and Dance.