On 4 May, the Rector of Voronezh State University, Dmitry Endovitsky, had a meeting with a representative of the French Embassy in Russia, the coordinator of the French Culture Foundation Alliance Française in Russia, Marianne Drobo.
Alliance Française has over 800 centres worldwide. At the moment, there are 13 French Culture Foundation Alliance Française centres in Russia. They can be found in Ekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Perm, Rostov-on-Don, Rybinsk, Samara, Saratov, Toliatti, Ufa, and Vladivostok. Marianne Drobo came to Voronezh to discuss the following stages of the project on creating Alliance Française Voronezh.
Among the participants of the meeting representing VSU were the Head of the International Cooperation Administration, Oleg Belenov, and the Director of the Regional French Centre and the Head of the Department of French Philology of the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology, Elena Alexeyeva. They discussed establishing an Alliance Française centre in Voronezh.
The university rector gave a presentation about the international activities of the university. He told the participants about existing double degree programmes, Erasmus+ projects aimed at enhancing academic mobility, Jean Monnet projects in the area of European studies, and the cooperation with European universities. He also mentioned that VSU is the only Russian university that is currently implementing 35 Erasmus+ projects.
‘Our university has had long-standing relations with France. VSU has been involved in active and diverse cooperation with French universities and has been implementing with them double degree programmes, student and academic staff exchange programmes, and research in the areas of tourism management, linguistics, and chemistry. Creating an Alliance Française centre will contribute to the “French direction” in the region and the Black Earth region as a whole,’ said the Head of the university.
‘It was very important for me to learn more about Voronezh State University and its resources as the French embassy knows a lot about VSU’s experience in the area of international cooperation,’ said Marianne Drobo.
She also expressed her hope that Alliance Française in Voronezh will become more than just a culture and language centre. It is expected to bring together various areas of cooperation, i.e. economics and business, and to become a powerful information and communication centre and platform for a dialogue between Russia and France. Keeping in mind the dynamic character and openness of VSU to international projects, Marianne Drobo offered Dmitry Endovitsky to become the president of the future Alliance Française Voronezh.
As part of her visit, Marianne Drobo came to see the premises of the future centre and had a meeting with the staff of the Regional French Centre.
Since the activities of Alliance Française are to cover other cities of the Black Earth region in addition to those in the Voronezh region, during her stay in Voronezh, Marianne Drobo also got to know Alliance Française’s partners in the area of education and culture. In the Nikitin Gymnasium with an advanced curriculum in the French language, she had meetings with representatives of the Voronezh region government, the Deputy Head of the Department of Education and Youth Policy, Galina Ivanova, the Deputy Head of the Department of Culture, Maria Mazur, and the Head of the administration of the Platonov Arts Festival, Mikhail Bychkov and Vera Guseva. As a result of the meetings, Marianne Drobo emphasised that there is full understanding and common interests regarding preparations to the opening of the Alliance Française Voronezh. At the end of the busy visit, Marianne Drobo saw a play in the Chamber Theatre.
