IMPORTANT FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN STUDENTS FROM KRASNODAR AND EAST SARAJEVO

EAST SARAJEVO, APRIL 5 /SRNA/ - Six students and two teachers from the Secondary General Education School in the Russian city of Krasnodar attended the ceremonial academy marking the brotherhood and friendship between this school and the Istočna Ilidža Secondary School Center in East Sarajevo.

The Advisor on Cultural, Educational, and Scientific Cooperation at the Embassy of the Russian Federation in BiH, Yuriy Pichugin, said that the Russian Embassy pays special attention to fostering relations between brotherly nations, and that the Serbian people in this region have been subjected to various trials and suffering in past centuries.

"Recently, the Serbian people have been subjected to various pressures regarding education, the development of education, and culture, and we are trying to maintain our contacts as much as possible, including in the educational, scientific sphere, and international cooperation," said Pichugin.

He thanked the Mayor of East Sarajevo Ljubiša Ćosić for initiating good relations with Krasnodar, adding that student exchanges are important not only for familiarizing peoples with each other, but also for maintaining traditional values.

"We believe that student exchanges help not only in getting to know our peoples and cultures but also in maintaining traditional values, which in the modern globalist world are being pushed into a corner and attempts are being made to erase from the memory of our people the values of family and Orthodoxy, as well as the values of our language and Cyrillic script, which are being challenged by certain globalist Western circles," said Pichugin.

The Mayor of East Sarajevo Ljubiša Ćosić said that it is a special event when children from East Sarajevo and Krasnodar make friends and establish brotherhood, and that this event deserves great attention.

"The friendship between the children of these cities initiated the friendship and twinning of East Sarajevo and Krasnodar," emphasized Ćosić.

He added that it is very important for the children of these cities to share knowledge, and that everything should be done to pass it on to future generations.

The director of the Istočna Ilidža Secondary School Center Svetlana Čolaković said that the twinning charter was signed last year, and that this visit has deepened the cooperation between East Sarajevo and Krasnodar.

"Six students and two professors from Russia have been with us for six days. They have visited Novi Zejtilik, Sokolac, Sarajevo, Jahorina, Višegrad, Mećavnik, and we made an effort to be good hosts and help them get a picture of our culture, tradition, and history," said Čolaković.

She added that the students from Russia have excellent knowledge about the history of the Serbs in this region.

The head of the Department for International Cooperation of Krasnodar, Anastasia Zilibor, said that they visited historical monuments of the Serbian people, but were mesmerized by the hospitality in East Sarajevo.

The ceremonial academy was prepared by the students of the Istočna Ilidža Public Institution Secondary School Center.