Polish Ambassador Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz visited the University on November 5th.

The meeting was about collaboration with Polish universities.

Rector Ilshat Gafurov told the audience, “We have ties with a number of Polish universities. Among them are University of Lodz, Jagellonian University, Gdansk University of Technology, University of Warsaw, Opole University, Silesian University of Technology, Institute for Scientific Research and Expertise, Wroclaw University of Economics. There are joint conferences and student exchange. 72 papers were published cooperatively by Kazanites and Polish colleagues”.

Ambassador Pelczynska-Nalecz expressed her hopes for the further advancement of cooperation. In May 2015 Dr. Gafurov received the Polish Cross of Merit from Ms. Pelczynska-Nalecz. The award was specifically for the promotion of collaboration between the universities of the two countries.

The ties between Kazan University and Poland were strong both during pre-Revolutionary and Soviet times. Since 2010 the cooperation has started picking up where it left during the collapse of the Soviet Union. In particular, the long overdue memorial plaque to Jan Baudouin de Courtenay was finally installed in 2011. During yesterday's talks Dr. Gafurov and Ms. Pelczynska-Nalecz laid flowers to the plaque.

Currently the collaboration is pretty active in linguistics, history, economics, and biology. The Center for Polish Studies works at KFU. It has ties with the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Center for Eastern European Studies of the University of Warsaw, and Polish universities. There is a joint major “Banking and Industry” with the Wroclaw University of Economics.

More than 50 students and employees are learning Polish language at KFU. The current teacher is Magdalena Krawczynska from University of Silesia in Katowice.

The Ambassador's visit continues November 6th with a number of official events.