Photographs depicting key landmarks on exchanges between the two countries are displayed including the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin’s visit to Sri Lanka in 7 December 1961 as well as Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s visit to the USSR in 1963.

Speaking on the occasion, Secretary to the President, Lalith Weeratunga stated that Sri Lanka sincerely hopes that Russia will succeed in defeating terrorism as Sri Lanka did against the LTTE.‘Sri Lanka being a small country with limited technology defeated terrorism with the human resources,’ he stated and added that Russia being a much larger and powerful state will no doubt achieve this.

Mr Weeratunga further stated that Russia came to the support of Sri Lanka when the country was fighting terrorism.

The Ambassador of Russia, Vladimir P. Mikhaylov stated that Sri Lanka should teach the world grappling with terrorism how to rescue the people from the clutches of terrorists and restore human rights of the people. Russia and many others came to defend Sri Lanka when some countries tried to teach human rights to Sri Lanka for their own vested interests.

The Ambassador added that the saying goes, a picture is worth thousand words and this exhibition has many thousands of words to describe the special relationship between Sri Lanka and Russia.

Immediately after the electoral victory of 1956, the new Prime Minister S W R D Bandaranaike took steps to promote bilateral relations with the Soviet Union, establishing diplomatic relations on February 19, 1957. Yet, relations go back to 1891 when the Russian Consulate was established in Galle. Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike made official visits to USSR twice in 1963 and 1974.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s visit to Russia in January 2010 has special significance with it being the first visit of a Sri Lankan leader to Russia after 36 years and the first ever by a Sri Lankan Executive President. There, he was awarded a Honoris Causa Doctorate by the Peoples’ Friendship University (PFU), formally known as Patricia Lumumba University of Moscow. Images of this visit are also displayed at the exhibition.