MOSCOW, November 6. /TASS/. Speaker of Russia’s State Duma Sergey Naryshkin has said he sees good prospects for joint work with compatriots within the framework of the Year of Russian Cinema to be held in 2016.
"I think that the theme-based years declared annually by the Russian president are too a good incentive for our joint work," Naryshkin said on Friday at a meeting with members of the World Coordination Council of Russian Compatriots Living Abroad. "You know that this year has been declared the Year of Literature, and I was honored to head [its] national organizing committee, last year was the Year of Culture, and the last but one — the Year of Russian History, and the next year will be the Year of Cinema," he said.
"This is a good basis for joint work, since the works of Russians compatriots living abroad is a separate and very powerful layer of the Russian world, which we may be proud of and which implies a lot of topics," said the head of the lower house of the Russian parliament.
Naryshkin also confirmed that the work with compatriots was a priority for the Russian State Duma. "It’s not without reason that the committee headed by Leonid Slutsky is called the Committee for CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots," he added.
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The speaker also referred to the speech of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the fifth World Congress of Compatriots Living Abroad on Thursday. Putin thanked Russian compatriots "for not breaking ties with Russia, for supporting the Russian culture, the Russian language and for supporting the principled civic stance," he noted. According to Naryshkin, "an entire range of important and serious issues" was discussed at the plenary meeting of the congress on Thursday, including "protecting the rights of the Russian diaspora and the Russian language, promoting the Russian language and Russia’s interests in the world as well as the compatriots’ resettlement program."
The World Congress of Russian Compatriots has been held in Moscow since 2001. The first congress brought together representatives of 46 countries. This year more than 400 delegates from 97 countries took part in the congress.
The Russian diaspora is one of the biggest in the world, it comprises about 30 million people. Two-thirds of them live in neighboring countries, and one-third — in the countries outside the former Soviet Union.