24 November 2020
November 24th, an event devoted to the 130th anniversary of the launch of diplomatic relations between Mexico and Russia, entitled "History, culture and bilateral relations today" took place.
MGIMO Rector A.Torkunov, the Ambassador of Mexico to Russia Norma Pensado and the Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Latin American Department A.Shetinin attended the meeting.
The Rector noted during the online conference: “Today Mexico is one of the most important Latin American partners of Russia. Bilateral relations are based on a long-standing friendship, sympathy, mutually beneficial collaboration, respect for each other's interests and a common position regarding many problems of our time. Bilateral interactions are completed by cooperation in various international and regional formats.”
The Rector reminded the audience that in 2005, the President of Mexico, Vicente Fox, visited MGIMO and that after that the University received many guests of honor from Latin America and Mexico. Such events always attract students for many different reasons including the fact that Spanish today is the second or third most popular foreign language studied at the University, and the number of students learning it is growing every year.
The MGIMO Spanish Language School is well renowned and comprises leading experts in the field. The University also has exchange programs with Mexican universities, with almost 200 students having to this day completed internships at the Monterrey Institute of Technology.
The interest in Mexico and Latin America among researchers at MGIMO also continues unabated, as confirmed by the regular publication of the Iberoamerican Notebooks. “We believe that this publication will quickly enter international scientific peer-reviewed databases, as it is of high quality and the team that is working on it today is dedicated to making it become a prominent magazine” concluded A.Torkunov.
“The bilateral relationship is the result of 130 years of hard, serious work. Our relations have a rich history, but also a rich future ”said Norma Pensado. In 2005, the President of Mexico visited MGIMO, and since then, “relations with MGIMO have been an important part of our relations with Russia. Cooperation is developing at all levels: the political dialogue between our two countries is dynamic and we strive to expand economic, cultural and educational ties”, remarked the Ambassador.
Alexander Shetinin congratulated the audience on this memorable occasion and noted: “Russia and Mexico are countries with an ancient history and rich traditions, a unique energy and different peoples inhabiting them. It is a great achievement that Russian-Mexican relations have always been characterized by the desire from both sides to understand each other and find common points to interact on."
The event continued with presentations by researchers and a question-and-answer session: the Head of the Department of History and Politics of European and American Countries, Co-Chair of the Ibero-American Center of MGIMO L.Okuneva spoke about “Russia - Mexico: 130 years on the road of history”; the Associate Professor of the Department of Diplomacy R.Reinhardt presented a report on "Literary Diplomacy: Russian Poets as Ambassadors of Culture in Mexico"; the RUDN Professor O.Chesnokova shared her insights on "The Spanish Language of Mexico: the linguistic picture of the world"; the Head of the Spanish Language Department V.Iovenko gave a talk on "St. Petersburg, Moscow, Mexico City: Rich Traditions of Bilateral Cultural Relations".
The session was moderated by the Head of the Rector's Office, the Lecturer at the Department of International Relations and Russian Foreign Policy K.Ulugova.
