ArmenPress
March 25 2005
RUSSIAN AND ARMENIAN FIRST LADIES OPEN RUSSIAN BOOK CENTER, VISIT
NATIONAL CHILDREN ART CENTER
YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS: Russian and Armenian First Ladies,
Lyudmila Putina and Bella Kocharian, inaugurated today the Armenian
Center of Russian Book at the Association of Cultural Ties with
Foreign Countries and later visited the National Children Art Center.
Lyudmila Putina is in Armenia together with her husband, Vladimir
Putin, who arrived yesterday evening to officially open the Year of
Russia in Armenia.
The Center contains a library, a video library and a reading hall.
The new establishment is expected to promote traditional friendly
Russian-Armenian relations in the humanitarian and spiritual spheres.
The Center will host presentations of new Russian editions,
meetings of writers, scholars and Russian language and literature
experts, anniversary celebrations of prominent Russian and Armenian
culture figures. It will also sell Russian books and periodicals.
According to the Association’s chairman, Armenian ambassador to
Russia Armen Smbatyan, the Center’s library has 3,000 Russian books,
encyclopedias, reference editions, dictionaries, fiction and
children’s books. They were purchased and sent to Yerevan by Hovhanes
Ohanian, the chairman of the Russian Federation Council committee for
economic policy, entrepreneurship and property.
The director of the National Children Art Center, Henrik Igitian,
told the First Ladies that apart from the works of Armenian children
the Center hosts also works of some 150,000 children from around 110
countries.
“I liked the works displayed here very much, they are very
impressive and touching,” Lyudmila Putina said, adding that she saw
great optimism in the works of Armenian children.
Henrik Igitian presented Mrs. Putina an illustrative edition of
Armenian national epos, David Of Sassoun and a book of his called
Armenian Art in the 20-th Century.