At a meeting on Jan. 2 to review the association’s activities in 2009, President Dao Trong Thi said the VRFA planned various activities to promote the friendship between the two nations, particularly to celebrate the 92 nd anniversary of Russia ’s great October Revolution Day and the 65 th commemoration of the victory against fascism.
According to the President Thi, this year the VRFA will focus its activities on building the statues of late President Ho Chi Minh and Russian astronaut Germane Ti Top at Ha Long Bay and joining in the opening of an exhibition of Russian universities in Hanoi .
Meanwhile, President of the Russia-Vietnam Friendship Association (RVFA), Vladimir Buyanov, said in a recent interview with the Voice of Russia radio that his organisation had been granted the status of a federal mass organisation in 2009.
The RVFA set up 12 chapters at different cities and regions across Russia , especially where widely inhabited by overseas Vietnamese. In Moscow and many other areas, the association has been recognised as an active supporter of Russian state agencies to develop relations with Vietnam , Buyanov added.
One of the most successful activities of the RVFA in 2009, he said, was to continue expanding the friendship between Vladivostok and the northern port city of Hai Phong , Ekaterinburg and central provinces of Vietnam . The association also started to restore the fine relations between St. Petersburg and Ho Chi Minh City, Yaroslav and Da Nang, Ulyanovsk – the hometown of V.I. Lenin and Nghe An – the birthplace of President Ho Chi Minh.
Buyanov underlined that 2010 would be a year of events of great significance to the national history of both Vietnam and Russia and the RVFA will actively contribute to organise these events.
This year, Vietnam will celebrate the 1000 th anniversary of Thang Long – Ha Noi, the 120 th birthday anniversary of late President Ho Chi Minh and the 80 th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of Vietnam./.