The message reads in part:
“Opened in St Petersburg in November 1818, the Asian Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences became a genuine cradle of the country’s Oriental studies and a foundation for establishing the main academic centres for Oriental studies in Russia and several other countries.
Members of the Institute’s staff are rightfully proud of outstanding researchers, including Orientalists, archaeologists, ethnographers, linguists and philologists and their fundamental works and research, as well as their unique contribution to enriching the global humanities studies.
It is important that the current members of staff cherish and preserve the creative heritage of their predecessors and strive to uphold their high professional standards. As a great Eurasian power, Russia considers it particularly important to study the history of the Orient, its culture and traditions.
Of course, I would like to note your highly popular educational activities, your tireless attention to issues of consolidating the communities of Orientalists in various countries around common tasks and goals, as is proved convincingly by the forum’s impressive line-up.”
The Russia and the Orient forum is timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oriental Manuscripts. It involves over 300 researchers from 20 Asian and European states, representatives of national academies of sciences, and leading Russian and foreign research centres.