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Laine Randyarv, Vice-Speaker of the Riigikogu (the highest representative and legislative body of the Republic of Estonia - Ed.) on Wednesday held a meeting with journalists from Armenia and the Armenian community of Estonia and expressed her appreciation to the local Armenians for the high activity in the areas of social and cultural life, reports Delfi.

According to the article about 2,000 Armenians live in Estonia. There are 11 national-cultural societies there, which are aimed at preserving the Armenian language, culture and traditions.

"Our Armenian community is differs with its cohesion and activity in the cultural sphere. I am very grateful to the local Armenians for organizing all sorts of social and cultural events, for the restaurants with Armenian cuisine - all this promotes the international communication within Estonia," Randyarv said.

According to her, the Armenians living in Estonia retain relations with their historical homeland, and many of them preserve their native language, which, regarding today's globalization processes, is no longer taken for granted.

At the meeting the results of the Estonian-Armenian cultural event, "See you in Tallinn", held last June in Tallinn, were discussed. The event was attended by over a hundred Estonia cultural activists, journalists and students from Armenia. There were concerts, theatrical performances, exhibitions of contemporary art, and other cultural events. The action was a return visit - in those days about 200 artists, entrepreneurs and journalists from Estonia had visited Armenia.

Laine Randyarv, who also was directly involved in carrying out the action and met the Armenians that arrived in the Riigikogu, called the Armenian cultural days held in Estonia succeeded: "Public diplomacy for the two small countries is a unique opportunity to establish friendly relations. The"See you in Tallinn" event gave the residents of Estonia an opportunity to get acquainted with Armenian rich culture and history, as well as made it possible to have direct interpersonal communication."

Laine Randyarv hoped that in the future many Estonian-Armenian joint projects will come to life.

Delfi also reports that for the first time this year the Day of National Communities will be celebrated in Lithuania.

According to Galina Mishkinene, the head of the Council of National Communities, it is particularly important that national communities in Lithuania demonstrated unity. The fact that this year, on May 21 the Day of National Communities will be celebrated for the first time in Lithuania will promote this to.

She noted that unity is necessary in solving such problems as, for example, the appearance of posters in Vilnius, telling the Azerbaijani version of Aghdam events taken place in 1992.

"At the end of January - beginning of March, we received the statement of the Armenian diaspora regarding the emergence of such posters. Union of Armenians in Lithuania wrote us and the prosecutor's office about this. We condemn such actions, spreading distrust and unilateral information about these events among the residents," said Mishkinene.