Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on November 4 presented Vietnamese writer and translator Hoang Thuy Toan with a Friendship Medal at the Kremlin Palace in Moscow.

Another 11 foreign citizens also received the award for boosting ties between their countries and Russia.

At the awards ceremony, Medvedev thanked his foreign guests for promoting Russia’s great historical and cultural legacy.

The president said world peace would only come through a greater appreciation and understanding of different nation’s cultures.

Toan said the award was in recognition not just of his work as a translator but of all Vietnamese translators and teachers of the Russian language in Vietnam.

In return, Toan gave Medvedev a book he had translated from Russian into Vietnamese and that was published in Vietnam in 1987.

Toan is now the director of Vietnam’s East-West Culture-Language Centre. He is also an honourable member of the Russian Writers’ Association.