Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on November 4 presented the State Pushkin Prize to a Vietnamese scientist for her outstanding contributions to friendship and cooperation between the two countries.

Scientist Nguyen Tuyet Minh (Source: vnu.edu.vn)

Nguyen Tuyet Minh is a scientific adviser to the Russian World Reading Room of the International School under the Vietnam National University – Hanoi.

Speaking at the awarding ceremony, Lavrov hailed Minh’s contributions to Russian language teaching in Vietnam, saying that she is among the pioneers and has spent 60 years teaching Russian in Vietnam.

He also expressed his delight at presenting the honour to a woman who has devoted most of her life time boosting people-to-people friendship as well as Russian language and culture in Vietnam.

Minh is the only Vietnamese to receive this prestigious award in 2017.

The teacher had held a 15-year-long position of Vice Dean of the Faculty of Russian Language and Culture, VNU University of Languages and International Studies before becoming the scientific adviser at VNU International School.

She participated in a collaboration project to compile a set of Russian textbooks between the Vietnamese Ministry of Higher and Secondary Vocational Education (now the Ministry of Education and Training) and the Russian Ministry of Higher Education.

In 1986, she was invited to participate in the compiling of the Great Vietnamese – Russian dictionary. This was a joint project between the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (now the Russian Academy of Sciences) and the Social Sciences Committee (now Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences).-VNA