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On February 22, 2013, the official delegation from the Kurdistan Region in Iraq headed by the Regions’s President, Massoud Barzani, visited the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, RAS. The delegation included also Masrour Massoud Barzani, director of Kurdistan Security Agency, Fuad Mohammad Hussein, President’s Chief of Staff, Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of Foreign Relations Department official of the provincial government, Kamran Ahmed Abdullah Shaaban, minister of Construction and Housing, Sarwar Pedawi, economic policy advisor of the President, and Barez Barzani, chief advisor of the President. The Russian side was represented with Ilia Morgunov, Russian Ambassador to Iraq, Viacheslav Nikonorov and Olga Kirdey, Gazprom Neft Company. For the Guests of Honor a special exhibition of archival and manuscripts materials on Kurdish studies was organized at the Institute, the first place in the world where a department on Kurdish Studies was organized, in 1959, by the order of Academician J.Orbeli, the then Institute’s Director. The Department’s researchers started complex studies of Kurdish history, literature, ethnography and language. The IOM’s Director, Prof Dr Irina Popova, and Dr Zare Yusupova who served as an interpreter showed the guests the special exhibition that included personal documents of A. Zhaba, Russian diplomat and scholar, materials on Kurdish ethnography, folklore, geography and history that used to belong to V.Minorsky, preeminent Russian scholar, and documents on the study of Kurdish dialects such as Sorani, Kurmanji and Zaza by K.Kurdoev, the founder of Russian Kurdish Studies and Kurdish Linguistics. The constant exhibition of Oriental texts held at the IOM RAS and a special exhibition of monographs by the IOM’s experts in Kurdish studies were also shown to the delegation. Finally, the President and other officials visited the Section of Middle Eastern Studies and had a talk with its researchers on their studies of the history and culture of Kurdistan. Some recent publications were offered to the Guests of Honor. PHOTOS At the special exhibition of archival and manuscripts materials on Kurdish studies 
At the Department of Manuscripts and Documents of the IOM RAS 
At the special exhibition of books on Kurdish Studies by the IOM’s scholars 
During the visit to the Section of Middle Eastern Studies 
Photos by S. Shevelchinskaya |
