The Agreement was signed by Deputy CEO of NIS, Andrey Shibanov, and the Russian Centre Manager, Nadezhda Kushenkova. The cooperation between NIS and the Russian Centre will include the exchange of knowledge and experiences in areas of mutual interest, but first and foremost joint efforts in popularizing the Russian language and culture in Serbia. As part of its “Energy Of Knowledge” programme, NIS supports, among other things, numerous projects geared towards spreading the Russian language in schools and universities in Serbia. The projects include organizing Russian Language Olympiads for students of elementary, grammar, and vocational schools, in which over 800 students have participated, hailing from as many as 158 schools in Serbia. In addition, NIS has helped open three bilingual, Russian-Serbian, classes in two schools in Serbia. “NIS supports all young people who opt for Russian language studies. In this way, nearly 40 students enrolled in the two Russian-Serbian classes at the “Jovan Popović” Elementary School in Novi Sad, and 28 students at the Aleksinac Grammar School. The support that we will receive from our new partner will be very important for us; on our part, we will do our best to help the Russian Centre work and develop,” Andrey Shibanov said in a statement. The ceremony was also attended by the manager for cooperation with educational institutions at NIS, Snežana Lakićević, representatives of the Russian Federation Embassy, the Russian Orthodox Church, the Serbian-Russian Humanitarian Centre from Niš, the University of Belgrade, and the Serbian Association for Slavic Studies.
