HE Ahmed bin Rakkad Al Ameri, Chairman of Sharjah Book Authority (SBA), received a delegation of Russian officials visiting the milestone 40th edition of Sharjah International Book Fair, taking the opportunity to hold key exchanges on ways to build on the longstanding Emirati – Russian cultural relations.
Representing the Russian delegation were HE Oleg Fomin, Consul General of the Russian Federation in Dubai and Northern Emirates; Vladimir Grigoriev, deputy head of the Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication; and Sergei Vadimovich Stepashin, President of Russia’s Book Union who also served as the Russian PM previously.
HE Al Ameri and the officials toured the Russian Pavillion at SIBF 2021, familiarising with the country’s cultural showcase for the book fair. During the tour of the pavillion and the rest of the book fair, Al Ameri hailed the strong ties between the UAE and Russia. He further expressed his eagerness to facilitate more cooperation and cultural exchanges between the two sides, noting that Russian literature since the 1950s and its key contrubitions have been closely followed by the Arab world.
Lauding Sharjah’s cultural leadership in the region, which has continually grown and flourished for the past 40 years, Stepashin said: “Russia’s participation in SIBF 2021 is aimed at introducing the UAE and the Arab world to contemporary authors and intellectuals from our country, and discuss with the 1,632 publishers participating at the book fair ways to bring more translated works of Russian literature to the readers in this region.”
SIBF 2021 is running its course until November 13 in Expo Centre Sharjah under the theme, ‘There’s always a right book’.