Founding ‘Rosavelli’.. Egyptian symbols: Russian culture is indispensable globally

Ashraf AboArafe

The Egyptian-Russian Friendship Association headed by Dr. Ibrahim Kamel and in cooperation with the Russian House in Cairo headed by Murad Gatin and the Egyptian Association of Graduates of Russian and Soviet Universities organized a round table entitled “Russaveli and the Role of Russian Culture” with the participation of Dr. Karma Sami, Director of the National Center for Translation, and Dr. Mohamed Nasr El Gebaly, Head of Department of Russian Language, Faculty of Al-Alsun, Ain Shams University, Dr. Fathi Toghan, Secretary-General of the Alumni Association, film director Ashraf Fayek, artist Samar Samir, founder and president of the Sahba Forum for Fine Arts, and a number of art icons and representatives of civil society.

The meeting was moderated by Sherif Gad, Secretary General of the Egyptian-Russian Friendship Association, who shed light on the Moscow conference held last March to establish the International Movement for Russia Lovers with the participation of representatives of 42 countries to defend Russian culture against the phenomenon of Rusaphobia that has emerged in Western Europe and America, which calls for hatred and boycott of Russian culture. .

Jad confirmed that the conference was organized with great interest from the Russian state, as President Putin addressed a word of greeting to the participants, thanking them for this initiative, and this support for Russian culture.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and a number of Russian state leaders also participated.

Gad referred to the participants’ decision to organize the administrative structure of the international movement of Russian lovers, and to elect a president for the international movement, the Bulgarian initiator, Nikolai Malinov, and three vice-presidents, and an administrative body, including Egypt, where Sharif Gad represented it.

Dr. Karma Sami emphasized that Russia’s culture is distinguished and rich, and who among us has not been affected by the giants of Russian literature, and by Russian creators in arts and plastic art, and others. The Russian culture is linked to the Egyptian culture by close and distinguished relations.

Dr. Muhammad Nasr al-Jabali also referred to the originality of Russian culture, stressing that there is no conception of global culture without Russian culture as a main component that inspired other cultures, and pointed out that Russian culture benefited from the great diversity of the multinational Russian society, indicating that Arab culture had never happened to it. No clash with Russian culture, on the contrary, there has always been constructive cooperation.

Dr. Fathi Toghan commented on the phenomenon of Rusaphobia, stressing that it only resonates within the walls of Western countries, and has no effect abroad. This is confirmed by the great interest in Russian culture in the world, and the great turnout of young people from all countries to study in Russian universities, and to deal with Russian culture.

While the film director / Ashraf Fayek indicated that Russian cinema has always been one of the sources of the soft forces of Russian culture, through which we got to know a lot about this rich culture.