MOSCOW — A Tibetan cultural exchange delegation dispatched by China’s State Council Information Office completed its three-day visit in Russia on Aug 19, following in-depth panel discussions on Tibetan culture with the Russian academic community.

The delegation met with teachers and students from Moscow’s universities and representatives of the Chinese community in Russia as they visited the Far East Studies Institute (IFES) of the Russian Academy of Science.

During the visit, the delegation introduced detailed information on China’s Tibet autonomous region and discussed prospects for further Tibetan cultural exchanges between China and Russia within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, which was met with enthusiasm from the Russian side.

Tibetan culture brings public minds of certain regions of the two countries closer, as people in three republics within Russia’s territory believe in Tibetan Buddhism and are eager to carry out cultural exchanges with Tibet, said Taras Ivchenko, head of the Confucius Institute of the Russian State University for the Humanities.

Religious culture, Tibetan medicine training and medical care are promising fields to start with, he added.

Speaking highly of the achievements of the Chinese government in boosting the development in Tibet, deputy head of the IFES Sergei Uianaev also expressed the think tank’s readiness to enhance academic exchanges and cooperation with Chinese institutions as well as take example by Tibet’s development experience.

The six-member delegation, led by head of the Religious Studies Institute of the China Tibetology Research Center Zhou Weiren, includes scholars and experts from Beijing and Tibet, regional government officials and living Buddha.

The visit in Russia is part of an overseas exchange agenda of the delegation, which had previously visited Mongolia and is heading for Japan as the next stop.