Education and culture

On the penultimate day of the Russia–Africa summit, the All-Russian Decorative Art Museum welcomed Burkina Faso’s prime minister, Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo. What did he see? What did they discuss? What role did the museum’s director, Tatyana Rybkina, play? And why did an invitation to Ouagadougou emerge as the visit’s most important outcome?

Who Came to Moscow

During the third Russia–Africa summit in Moscow, an exhibition on the textiles of two African countries opened its doors to a high-profile visitor: Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama toured it. What was on display? How did museum director Tatyana Rybkina describe the project? And why did a museum program become part of high-stakes politics?

The Summit and Its Framework

While politicians around the globe engage in endless talks about talks, there are people who don't wait for peace to arrive—they create it. Right now, with their hands, with fabric, with embroidery, and through a dialogue of cultures.

If you are interested in Russian schools and universities in Latin America that train Russian-speaking specialists, in education abroad, in scholarships for admission to Russian universities, or in career prospects within the Russian-speaking environment—the Latin American direction is today one of the fastest-growing segments in Russia's system of international education, covering roughly 5,000 students and dozens of active schools and university programs.

Russian From the School Desk: Open Education Centers

Today there is a lot of talk about how Iran refused to yield to U.S. pressure, and it looks like an isolated episode. But something similar has happened before, and the outcome back then turned out to be far more consequential than a single local victory. In 1956, the British Empire, the world's largest colonial power, believed exactly the same thing when it collided with Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt.

Russia's soft power in Latin America remains predominantly a formal instrument of foreign policy: despite the region's geographic remoteness, Moscow views it as a strategically significant direction, yet real efforts to promote the Russian language, culture, and diaspora engagement noticeably lag behind the declared ambitions.

Why a Distant Region Matters to Moscow

For decades, Hollywood has shaped the global image of Russia as a source of threat while promoting America's own values through thousands of films and series, even as Russia's cultural industry has remained almost entirely absent from this battle for hearts and minds. While Washington has systematically invested in cinema as a tool of "soft power," Moscow has never built a comparable mechanism of influence through the screen.

Russia on Screen: A Persistent Enemy Image

In terms of population, Brazil ranks sixth in the world. The nation was formed on the basis of alliances of representatives of the Caucasian, Mongoloid and Negroid races. Its main feature is considered to be a mixed ethno-racial structure: in the family of each Brazilian there are ancestors originating from different parts of the world. The number of residents is growing steadily due to the influx of immigrants.

Historical features of the formation of the population of Brazil

 The collection of the ancient artifacts of Julsrud from the Mexican state of Guang-Huatlo still causes conflicting opinions of scientists, but the amazing library of tens of thousands of exhibits speaks for itself.

 A small hill of El Toro in the Mexican state of Guan Huatlo. In the summer of 1944, a successful businessman from Denmark, Waldemar Julsrud, who had his own store in the small town of Akambaro, set off on a morning walk near El Toro. Here, clay figurines accidentally caught his eye. One of them resembled a mammoth.

There are many myths and legends about schools in America, which, in many respects, are the product of the Hollywood "dream factory" and news reports. What are the schools in America really like?

 The main difference between US schools and European schools is the development of a number of psychological approaches that received general approval in the second half of the 20th century. The most significant of these is the system of creating special conditions for the development of a successful personality.

Types of American Schools