By Nurulhuda Che Das
KUALA LUMPUR, March 14 (Bernama) -- Russia is looking at introducing
visa-free travel for Malaysians to the federation, reciprocating such
facility extended to Russian visitors to Malaysia, said Russian envoy
Lyudmilla G. Vorobyeva.
The Russian ambassador to Malaysia said that the agreement for visa-free
travel is being finalised and hoped that the agreement would be signed
this year.
"For Russians we don't need the visa to come to Malaysia for 30 days, in
our system we cannot grant the same thing to our partner (Malaysia), we
need to have a visa-free agreement and we are working on this kind of
agreement so that Malaysian nationals can go to Russia without any visa
for 30 days," said the 47-year-old envoy, who took up her posting here
in August 2010.
She hoped the visa-free travel would further enhance the tourism and economic relations between both countries.
"My impression is that people here are very interested in going to
Russia, everyone knows about St Petersburg and Moscow and many people
are visiting this major tourist destination," Vorobyeva told Bernama
during her visit to the news agency here Wednesday.
"There are a lot of potential and interesting places to visit in the
Asian part of Russia, with a lot of eco-tourism, national parks,
historical and cultural places," she said.
On education, Vorobyeva hoped to see more Malaysians studying in Russia
since the quality of education there was very good, while the cost was
quite affordable compared to the western countries.
She said there were some 3,000 Malaysian students in Russia, taking
courses such as medicine, while there were only some 150 Russian
students in Malaysia taking up mostly Islamic studies.
Vorobyeva said that she had been discussing with vice-chancellors of
various universities in Malaysia to do some exchange programmes with
Russian universities.
"There are a number of students in Russia who are studying Malay
language and are specialising in Malay studies, and I would like to
share a success of one of the students who won second place for the
international category in the International Malay Language Oratory
Contest for the Prime Minister's Trophy last week," she added.
Vorobyeva also hoped more Russian universities would take part in the
education fairs held in Malaysia in a move to promote and expose the
courses they are offering besides medicine, such as in the field of
aviation and technical.
"Russia has a lot more than just medical studies to offer. We have also
very good schools for fundamental scientific studies, economic and
engineering," she said.
She said the Russian government also provides scholarships for Asean
countries, however, Malaysians have not taken up these scholarships.
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