New Delhi, June 8 (IANS) The 120 photographs compiled in a coffee table book may not be an encyclopaedia of India-Russia ties but are enough to take an onlooker to some major landmarks of the long road the two countries have traversed in their time-tested relations.
The album, compiled by the Russian embassy and released Tuesday by former foreign secretary of India Krishnan Raghunath, has photographs dating back from the 1940s to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s India trip in March this year.
Russian ambassador to India Alexander M. Kadakin was also present for the official release of the book aptly titled: ‘Russia and India From the Past into the Future: Continuity and Innovation’.
India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru with Russian artist and philosopher Nicholas Roerich in the Kullu Valley Himachal Pradesh – a historic photograph of 1942 – is perhaps a testimony to the deep ties the two countries have forged through the annals of history.
From culture, cinema, military, economy, energy, space, science and technology to nuclear energy ties, the album gives a panoramic insight into all aspects of cooperation between the two countries since 1955 when Nehru visited the then Soviet Union.
Nehru in his trademark white jacket is seen with his daughter Indira Gandhi in a June 1955 photograph during their trip to Soviet Union.
The trip was returned by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in the fall of that year and is captured in a black and white photograph shot on the lawns of Rashtrapati Bhavan with Nehru and India’s first president Rajendra Prasad.
‘These rare glimpses illustrate the unique experience of Russian-Indian amity, which in our commonly cherished and priceless legacy to be handed over to coming generation,’ Kadakin said.
It is a testimony to ‘what has been already achieved and will help visualise more graphically the vistas of strengthening the strategic cooperation, set new ambitions goals and facilitate the steady progress towards new luring horizon and breath taking heights,’ Kadakin noted about the book that opens with two women dancers from India and Russia embracing each other in a 1987 picture.
