Russian-language library for children opens in Galway school

The exploits of a tall policeman named Uncle Steeple and other fables by one of the former Soviet Union's great literary survivors line the shelves of Ireland's first Russian-language children's library, which opened in Galway yesterday.

Russian ambassador to Ireland Maxim Peshkov attended the event at Scoil Bhríde primary school in Shantalla, where some 19 nationalities, including half a dozen east European states, are on the roll.

The library project was initiated by the Russian Cultural Centre Alliance, which was established in Galway 10 years ago as the first organised Russian-speaking community in Ireland.

The project is funded by the non-profit Russian Cultural Foundation, and has been named after late poet, playwright and children's writer Sergei Mikhalkov, creator of Uncle Steeple and other works, including a poem which Stalin favoured as the character shared his daughter's name.

Mikhalkov, who came from a noble family but survived the Bolshevik revolution, wrote three versions of the national anthem at various stages - one lauding Stalin and one ignoring him, and a third one for Vladimir Putin, who ordered restoration of the Soviet tune, in 2001.

He was decorated by every regime under which he served, and at one point he denounced writers Boris Pasternak and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

His former wife Julia Subbotina-Mikhalkova was invited to the opening, hosted by the Galway-based alliance which involves some 1,500 residents from "post-Soviet Union republics", as Ludmila Snigireva terms them.

Ms Snigireva teaches secondary students from all over the west in Russian to Leaving Certificate standard.

The alliance also runs the weekly “Paper Crane” educational club at Scoil Bhríde for children from aged two to 16.

The club's participants are made up of Russian citizens (24), as well as members from Ireland (4), Ukraine (12), Latvia (16), Belarus (7), Estonia (4), Lithuania (3), Moldova (3), Azerbaijan (2), Poland (1) and Romania (1).

“We have a rule - no politics,” said alliance chair Dmitrijs Beketovs, noting the current conflict in Ukraine.

”We are all away here, we speak Russian together, the children mix and we don’t discuss the political situation in our meetings,” says Mr Beketovs, who is from Latvia.

The Beketov family has been in Galway for 10 years, with Irina (13) currently a secondary school pupil in Coláiste Éinde, and Georgijs (8) in Scoil Bhríde.

Preparing for yesterday's event,which included music and Pryanik cake from a famous bakery in Tula, Alla Emanuilova from Moscow recalled how she grew up listening to the fables of Mikhalkov.

The library, which was the brainchild of Olga Butskaya from Moscow, also has dictionaries, books on history - ranging from Peter the Great to Napoleon's invasion of Russia - and geography, on Russian landscape and art and on Russian state awards.