A statue of President Ho Chi Minh in Russia (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – On Ho Chi Minh Square in Russia’s
capital city of Moscow there is a monument of Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh
which has been a popular place for public gathering of Vietnamese people on
special occasions.
The monument was inaugurated on May 18, 1990 on the
occasion of President Ho Chi Minh’s 100th birth anniversary.
Russian sculptor Vladimir Efimovich Tsigal, one of the
two creators of the monument, visited Vietnam in 1985 to research for his
project. After witnessing what are going on in the country, he had come up with
an entirely new idea for the monument. According to him, the round disc symbolizes
Vietnam’s sun, representing the halo of President Ho Chi Minh always shines
light for Vietnamese men to stand up for the country. The creator’s initial
intention was for the man to hold a rifle, but after the visit, he decided to
remove the rifle to imply the strong rise of Vietnam in peacetime.
He also used the image of bamboo trees, the emblematic tree
of Vietnam, to represent the will and strength of the country as the bamboo
tree can be bended, but it is difficult to break.
President Ho Chi Minh visits construction site of Irkutsk hydropower plant. (Photo: VNA)
When one of the three birch trees growing in front of the
Ho Chi Minh monument died, a Vietnamese man named Truong Quang Giao and his
wife Sveta travelled more than 80km to bring another birch tree from their
garden to replace it. Giao, now 82 years old, serves as president of the
association of Vietnamese people in Russia this year.
In 1955 and 1957, President Ho Chi Minh visited Irkutsk,
now part of Russia. Vera Pavlovna, then an elementary school student, was among
those greeting him in welcoming ceremonies. “He came hugging each of us and we put
a red scarf around his neck,” Pavlovna recalled, “I could not forget his face.”
The president also came talking to lecturers and students
of the Irkutsk State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, under the
Irkutsk State University, said Nguyen Quang Duong, president of the association
of Vietnamese people in the province. His speech in Russian and French received
big applause from the audience. After the president passed away in 1969, the
institute asked to be named after him.
President Ho Chi Minh was warmly greeted everywhere he
visited in Russia, said Sergey Levchenko, first secretary of the Russian
Communist Party organisation in Irkutsk. Vietnam is developing and gaining many
great achievements, he noted, hailing the country’s socio-economic success over
the last decade./.