Lyudmila Putin opens Centre of Russian Book in Yerevan

ITAR-TASS News Agency
March 25, 2005 Friday

YEREVAN, March 25 — Wife of the Russian president Lyudmila Putin and
the wife of the Armenian President Bella Kocharyan opened a Center
of Russian Book in Yerevan on Friday.

The new book center is located in one of the most beautiful mansions in
the center of Yerevan that dates back to 1901. The building houses the
Armenian society for cultural contacts and cooperation with foreign
countries for more than 50 years.

The book center includes a library, a video hall and a readers’ hall.
The new center is hoped to be one of the most interesting institutions
of the Russian culture in Armenia. Its task is to maintain and
develop traditional Russo-Armenian contacts in the humanitarian and
spiritual fields.

The new book centre will host presentation ceremonies of new pieces
of Russian literature, meetings of workers of literature and art,
scientists, and language experts and jubilee parties in honor of
outstanding workers of culture and art.

Armen Sambatyan, Chairman of the Armenian society for cultural
contacts who is also the Armenian ambassador to Russia, said that a
first batch of 3,000 books published in Russia were already available
in the Library of the new book center.

Chairman of the Committee for economic policies and entrepreneurship
Oganes Oganyan from the Russian Federation Council had selected his
books for the Center and sent them to Armenia.