On February 4, Belgrade hosted a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Center of the Russian Geographical Society (CRGS) in Serbia. The participants of the event discussed the work results of 2021 and plans for 2022, and also approved the council members for the period up to 2026.
The cooperation agreement between the Russian and Serbian Geographical Societies was signed in 2014. In October 2016, an opening ceremony of the RGS Center in Serbia was held, in which the President of the Republic Tomislav Nikolić, took part. In February 2017, the Center's Board of Trustees was formed, which included representatives of business and the creative intelligentsia of Serbia, in particular the world-famous film director Emir Kusturica.
The meeting of the Board of Trustees was chaired by its head Dušan Bajatović. The keynote speech was given by the head of the Center, vice-president of the Serbian Geographical Society Miroljub Milinčić. He noted that, despite the ongoing series of restrictive measures in Serbia and in the world as a whole, due to the ongoing pandemic, the CRGS “did not slow down” during 2021 and successfully continued its activities.
Among the main results of the Center's work were organizing and holding in Serbia and the Republic of Serbia a series of exhibitions of works by the winners of the Russian Geographical Society's photo contest "The Most Beautiful Country", and the international educational campaign the Geographical Dictation. In addition, considerable attention in the work of the CRGS was paid to the development of Russian-Serbian bilateral cooperation. So, in 2021, in close cooperation with the Russian Geographical Society, student environmental and geographical camps were organized at Smolensk State University and Belgrade University. The Center has signed and is implementing cooperation agreements in the field of geography and related sciences with a number of Russian universities, including Kuban State University in Krasnodar, Pushkin Leningrad State University and Smolensk State University.
As part of the meeting, the members of the Board of Trustees of the Center for the period until 2026 were approved. Dušan Bajatović, the head of Srbijagas company, was unanimously elected as its chairman, and Vladimir Kolosov, vice-president of the Russian Geographical Society, as its deputy. Due to existing health restrictions, not all council members were able to personally attend the meeting. Thus, the world-famous film director Emir Kusturica, who joined the meeting via videoconference, noted that he positively assesses the activities of the Center of the RGS in Serbia and intends to continue to support the initiatives of the Center both in Serbia and abroad.
During the discussion of the Center’s work plan for 2022, it was noted that in addition to preserving traditional areas of activity, such as congress and exhibition ones, publishing and educational activities, it is planned, together with specialized Serbian institutions, to develop a system of incentive measures for schoolchildren, students and young researchers who dedicate their theses and research to the topic of Russia, as well as to the development of good neighborly relations between the two countries.