St. Petersburg cultural forum highlights China-Russia culture cooperation

ST. PETERSBURG, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) -- The fifth St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum held from Thursday to Saturday has highlighted a series of fruits yielded in the China-Russia cooperation in culture.

In a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the opening ceremony of the forum on Friday, Chinese writer Wang Meng said that the China-Russia cooperation in culture is vital for the long-term mutual trust, understanding and dialogue established by both countries on the basis of equality.

Speaking at the forum, Wang called for preserving and developing cultural traditions so as to build a beautiful cultural landscape featuring globalization, modernization, pluralism and integration of ethnic and regional characteristics.

On Thursday, eight Chinese universities and 18 Russian universities signed an agreement on establishing the China-Russia Association of Culture and Arts Universities.

On the same day, the Sino-Russian Fund of Culture and Education, Russia's Lenfilm studio and Glavkino studio signed an agreement on the remaking of Russian film "Amphibian Man," in which the roles will be played by Chinese and Russian actors, and the famous song "Sea Devil" will be translated into Chinese.

On Friday, Moscow's Mayakovsky Academic Theater and four other Russian theaters joined the Silk Road International League of Theaters, which was initiated by the China Arts and Entertainment Group.

During the forum, Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky met with the representatives of a bilateral cooperative project on circus.

Under the project, Dacheng Shanshui Hotel in Zhang Jiajie, a scenic area in China's Hunan Province, will cooperate with the Great Moscow State Circus to build a circus city, the biggest of its kind in the world with 10,000 seats. The construction of the venue will begin in March 2017.

Representatives from more than 80 countries and regions participated in the forum, which organized 275 events. The Chinese delegation was the largest foreign delegation.