NMSTU to Speak Portuguese

Published: Thursday, 07 October 2021 10:46

The NMSTU-Brazil relations are to enter a new level. That is the bottomline of the meeting between NMSTU’s leadership and the new ambassador of Brazil in Moscow Rodrigo Baena Soares.

The visit of the NMSTU delegation to the Brazil embassy in Moscow marked the next logical step in the framework of collaboration between the two parties. Last May, the University saw a visit of Alvaro Augusto Guedes Galvani, First Secretary and Head of the Department of Public Diplomacy, Culture and Education, and Gabriele Costa Guadagnin, Attaché of the same department. During that visit, the parties discussed and agreed on certain areas for cooperation. This time actual steps were made to realize the agreements.

The key topic of the recent meeting included the University’s participation in the Lectorate programme funded by Brazilian Ministry of Education. Under the programme, Brazilian lecturers will visit the University to teach Portuguese and the Portuguese culture, give lectures and participate in joint research projects. Also, NMSTU was offered to take part in a new programme, in the framework of which students will be able to learn Portuguese and take up the humanities (such as Brazilian art and literature) in the e-learning format.

In their turn, the NMSTU delegation, which was represented by rector Mikhail Chukin, recruiting agency specialist of the International Office Igor Kulkov and director of the Institute for the Humanities Tatiana Abramzon, presented the programme of a project titled Brazilian Patterns, under which the university is to host Brazil Days.

The programme encompasses a photo exhibition and master classes given by a Brazilian street artist, who, together with students of the Civil Engineering, Architecture and Arts Institute, will paint one of the walls in the Institute’s for the Humanities building. A translator competition, where the participants will be asked to translate Portuguese poems into Russian, is another item of the programme. The Brazil Days at NMSTU are to kick off this autumn, while the visit of the Brazilian artist is scheduled for the middle of November.

 “Our cooperation does not only involve cultural exchanges,” comments Igor Kulkov. “Brazil is an industrial country, with strong mining and processing sectors, which means that we can also count on cooperation in technical areas. Thus, we could engage in joint research using various grants and university programmes. We could exchange practices and jointly provide services to production companies helping them to develop new materials, compositions and technologies. Through cooperation with the Brazil Embassy we will be able to recruit Brazilian students to study at NMSTU.”

Mr Rodrigo Baena Soares stressed the importance of this cooperation and urged to expand the partnership between NMSTU and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in education and science.