On July 6, we held opening ceremony for our new established “Kanazawa University Russian Alumni Association” office. In the beginning of this event, President Koetsu Yamazaki gave a remark and said “We hope lots of our Russian alumnus to get together in this room and will further deepen their network cultivated in Kanazawa. I believe that this alumni association would contribute to develop further achievement between Japan-Russia exchange”.

Afterwards, Ms. Victoriia Vovk, a student ambassador expressed her gratitude on behalf of the Russian students who are currently studying at Kanazawa University.

Establishment of this Russian Alumni Association is one of the important measures in Inter-University Exchange Project entitled “Training Program for Russian-Japan Innovative Leaders of Tomorrow”, which was started in August 2017.

Until now, the other overseas alumni association have been centered to function as a platform for the graduates, but this Russian Alumni Association will invite persons from both Russia and Japan, who are closely related with Russian Universities and Kanazawa University, to create the exchange platform and stay connected with each other.

A round-table meeting followed the ceremony and Russian students had a talk with president about their recent situation. Furthermore, Prof. Dmitry Tayurskii, Vice President of Kazan Federal University, and other Russian graduates also attended this meeting through online from their location.

Due to the COVID-19 the travel between both countries were restricted, but even in this difficult situation, we were able to make up real-time bilateral exchanges through new online approach, and we believe this event is one of the significant examples for future exchange.