Russia, Abkhazia Sign Cultural Cooperation Agreement
November 11, 2009
ITAR-TASS
MOSCOW - Russian Culture Minister Alexander Avdeyev and his Abkhazian counterpart Nugzar Logua signed an agreement on cooperation in the cultural sphere in Moscow on Wednesday.
"Now we have the principles we shall cooperate on," Avdeyev said. "Such principles exist between fraternal countries. They facilitate cultural exchanges to the maximum extent."
According to the minister, bilateral cultural cooperation has been never interrupted.
"We do not have to start from scratch, we have common historic roots and the common Soviet past," Avdeyev said. "The ministers' task is not to bureaucratize these ties and to keep them natural," he said.
Exchanges of guest performances, interaction between libraries, museums, archives and personnel training are the cooperation guidelines. The countries may also develop cooperation in the search for stolen cultural valuables that have surfaced in other countries and in the prevention their smuggling.
Logua said the agreement had been signed on the basis of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, concluded on September 17, 2008.
"I believe this heralds the beginning of revival of our cultural ties," the minister said. "Our countries maintained cultural ties before the revolution and during the Soviet era. After the recognition of the Republic of Abkhazia they will get a new impulse," he said.
The Russian Culture Ministry will host the signing of a document on holding Belarussian Culture Year in Russia in 2010 and a meeting of Russian and Armenian culture ministers.
