Russia’s humanities presence in the world does not reflect its capabilities, Moscow should use the experience of such major players as French-speaking countries, the Goethe-Institute and the Confucius Institute, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday.
“It is obvious that our presence of humanities in the world does not equal our capabilities and we recognize this easily. To a large extent we are restoring the positions that we lost in the 1990s and we are greatly inferior to serious international players in this area such as the Francophones, the Goethe-Institute, the Cervantes and the Confucius Institutes. It is necessary to take the best of what they do,” Medvedev said.
Medvedev added that according to a survey held by Skolkovo Business School and the International Agency from 2005 to 2010, Russia holds tenth place in the “soft power index.”
“As for our military forces, we are aware that we are not in the tenth place, and this is a serious imbalance, and in the top three there are the U.S., France and Germany,” Medvedev said.