Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden to the Republic of Belarus Martin Åberg visited YKSUG

The meeting between the delegation of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Sweden to Belarus and authorities and students of Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno took place on 23 November within the familiarization visit of Martin Åberg to the Grodno Voblast.

The delegation was welcomed by the Iryna Kiturka, Senior Vice-rector.

– We truly appreciate Your diplomatic work, which is aimed to spreading and strengthening the cooperation between Belarus and Sweden in politic, economic, social, cultural and educational fields,  – noted Iryna Kiturka. – We hope for equal dialog, trust-based partnership and for good bilateral working relations between the Embassy and the Universyty, which will bring a lot of high results.

The Senior Vice-rector mentioned, that YKSUG if a classical-type higher education institution, which is recognized as the best university in the region. They teach here all kinds of specialists: from humanitarian to technical.

The Ambassador, on behalf of the delegation expressed the appreciation to the representatives of our alma mater for the possibility to discover Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno and added that the visit might be helpful for tightening contacts between Sweden and Grodnon Voblast, as well, as with YKSUG particularly.

During the meeting parties discussed on the possible options of cooperation. Our university considers important broadening of cooperation between Swedish HEIs in fields of education, science, culture, academic mobility of staff and students, development of networking programs of M.A. specialties and international projects. Besides, the guests were told about YKSUG projects, which help to establish relations with European HEIs. Those are Summer and Winter Russian Language Summer Schools. They, as Henadz Hachko, the Vice-rector for Academic Affairs mentioned, reveal Belarus before foreign guests as the country with unique nature and culture. By the way, this project interested the Ambassador. He plans to spread a word about RLS among Swedish universities.

After the meeting, Martin Åberg had a conversation with students and arranged little Q&A. YKSUG students were especially interested in the Ambassador’s student time, why he chose to be an ambassador, some questions about swedish mentality and culture. The Ambassador also shred his impressions of Belarus and the Belarusians.

– The Belarusians and the Swedish are much alike, we have much in common. Our people are a bit withdrawn, but only at first sight. We are well-organized and work hard. Having in mind, that urbanization happened to Sweden later, than to other European countries, we love the nature and keep it safe. And, of course, both our countries love hockey, –  finalizedMartin Åberg.

Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden to the Republic of Belarus took part in opening of the lecture by Swedish children’s writer Eva Susso, who presented her new book “Yeti in Minsk” to the students of the Faculty of Arts and Design. During the meeting, the writer told YKSUG students about the necessity of illustrations in children’s book, about the details of illustrating, and also mentioned how the illustrator cooperates with the writer.

The visit continued with the presentation of Swedish study and research programs for undergraduates, M.A. students, Ph. D. students and lecturing staff of our University. As a coda for the meeting, actors of the amateur theatre presented “Miss Julie”, a play about the relations between men and women after the work of Swedish classic August Strindberg.

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