Vietnamese Ambassador to Russia Ngo Duc Manh and delegates at the event (Source: vov.vn)
The ceremony was attended by Russian officials, former Soviet military experts who helped Vietnam during the war against the US, and Russian friends, among others.
In his remarks, Vietnamese Ambassador to Russia Ngo Duc Manh said nearly 100 years ago, President Ho landed in St. Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd, as part of his path for national salvation.
The construction of the late leader’s statue in St. Petersburg holds great political, historical and cultural significance, he said, noting that it will become a symbol of the long-standing friendship between Vietnam and Russia, and St. Petersburg in particular.
The Vietnamese Embassy is coordinating with St. Petersburg’s authorities and competent agencies of the two countries in designing the statue, Manh added.
There are four statues of President Ho Chi Minh in Russia; the first built in Moscow in 1990, and others in Ulyanovsk in 2017, and Vladivostok in 2019. The fourth statue is located within the campus of the St. Petersburg University.
On October 8, the Vietnamese Embassy in Russia and Saint Petersburg city authorities held a ceremony to place a stone slab measuring 2mx1.7m, weighing nearly 10 tons, at the place where President Ho Chi Minh’s statue will be erected in Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation.
The decision to erect the statue is a testament to the warm affection of the Russian people for President Ho Chi Minh, showing Russian’s respect for the beloved leader of the Vietnamese people. It is also proof of the close cooperation and friendship between the two countries, especially in the context of COVID-19, which broke out again and has seen complicated progress in the past week./.