On November 17, Lin Zhihua, president of ZWU, delivered a speech in English via video link to celebrate the 220th anniversary of Yaroslavl State University of Russia. The speech was broadcast live and reported by many local media outlets. Lin Zhihua warmly congratulated Yaroslavl State University on its 220th anniversary, reviewed the cooperation between the two universities in cultural exchanges, educational cooperation, and scientific research, and looked forward to deepening cooperation between the two sides, jointly boosting the cultivation of high-level application-oriented talents, promoting high-quality development of internationalization of higher education, and making greater contributions to the economic and cultural cooperation and exchanges between China and Russia.

Founded in 1803 and located on the banks of the Volga River, Yaroslavl State University is one of the oldest universities in Russia. Since ZWU established Chinese Language and Culture Center at Yaroslavl State University in 2019, the exchanges between the two universities have never been interrupted. ZWU has welcomed dozens of Russian college students, who come to study Chinese culture, and established International Students’ National Education Master Workshop. ZWU has also held Tech-driven Academia Forum for Sino-Russian College Students for three consecutive years, which is highly recognized by Chinese and Russian scholars. In the past four years, ZWU has also offered online courses on the Chinese culture to Russian college students, which are always in high demand.

In October of this year, both universities launched a teacher exchange program. As the first participant in this program, Natalia Kasatkina, director of the School of Foreign Languages and dean of the Foreign Languages Department of Humanities at Yaroslavl State University, came to our university and carried out a series of teaching and research exchange activities. In the future, the two universities will continue to provide opportunities and platforms for students from both universities to learn about each other, enhance friendship, and improve language ability and cross-cultural communication competence.

For a long time, the Foreign Languages College of ZWU has always been committed to building a three-dimensional and diversified platform for cultural exchange and communication, innovating the collaborative cultivation mechanism of language talents among universities, governments and enterprises, creating a high-level think-tank for national and regional studies, and establishing a new brand of “Belt and Road Initiative” cultural education. The cooperation and exchanges between ZWU and Yaroslavl State University of Russia are a microcosm of many international collaborations. In the future, ZWU will continue to guide itself with multi-sided strategic cooperation agreements, relying on the method of combining online and offline exchanges to promote the development of the Chinese culture and the unique culture of Ningbo City.