WASHINGTON, December 12. /TASS/. Americans and Russian expatriates living in the United States miss Russia's culture despite efforts by local authorities to cancel it, Olga Golovashchenko, director of the Russian Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., told TASS on Wednesday.

"The current environment for our work is not the best, of course," she said at a reception at the Russian Embassy in the United States on the occasion of the center's 25th anniversary on December 11. "The local authorities often limit our activity, but we keep on trying to do our best, and people started coming to us [to the cultural center] as a result," Golovashchenko added.

"The information environment has been difficult" recently for the Russian Cultural Center, Golovashchenko noted. "People hardly ever went [to the center]. Today, partly through our efforts and partly because people greatly miss Russian culture, they actively visit the center," the director of the center said, speaking about both Russian expatriates and Americans.

The US authorities now "vehemently attack everything Russian," Golovashchenko said. In particular, they cancel concerts of artists who support Russia. "The memorandum of understanding on principles for cooperation in culture was terminated. Our artists are now categorized as Ukrainian. Russian schools [in the US] are forced to teach the Ukrainian language," Golovaschenko added. "Now there are no tours or concerts, and people miss them a lot."

However, attempts to cancel Russian culture in the United States "fail," Golovashchenko stressed. "They only weaken themselves by canceling everything. Who will have the worst of it? We will never start canceling [culture] in our country," she added. Speaking about the center's plans for the upcoming year, the director noted that "the most important event is the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s Victory in the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War. The center will prepare a concert and various memorial events."

Reception marking the 25th anniversary of the Russian Cultural Center in Washington

The Russian Embassy in Washington hosted a reception to mark the 25th anniversary of the Russian Cultural Center in the US capital on December 11. About 200 people attended the reception, including compatriots, particularly from Washington and its suburbs, the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. US citizens, employees of embassies of CIS countries, as well as some European, Asian, African, Middle Eastern, and other states also took part in the event. Since its opening, the Russian Cultural Center "has been a hub of Russian culture, education, and science despite the volatile political situation and all the ups and downs in Russia-US relations," Russian Charge d'Affaires in the United States Alexander Kim noted.