Gu Xiulian (second from right), vice-chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and president of the All-China Women's Federation, sings with Svetlana Orlova (right), vice-chairwoman of the Federation Council of Russia, at a performance in Moscow.

China's Web-based generation may find it ridiculous to see people of their parents' age, or even older, weep when listening to Russian folk songs.

But if they look closer, they will find in these tears a genuine emotion.

The generation gap is most obvious when it comes to Russia. For older Chinese, feelings toward Russia are reflective of the ups and downs in bilateral ties - ties that have been strengthened in the last three decades.

Yet for a young generation, it is an exotic place of beauty and wealth, of a deep and profound culture - a mystic power.

These ideas found expression at the China Russia Women's Cultural Week from July 2-8 in Moscow and St. Petersburg, one of the main events of the Chinese Year in Russia, that led to much interaction between people from both countries at concerts, discussions and exhibitions.

They were also mirrored by the different generations of Chinese students in Russia, who got together during the week. For those sent by the State in the 1950s, during the honeymoon days of bilateral ties, their whole life has been inked in the history of the Communist Movement worldwide.

Zhao Shaohua (left), vice president of the All-China Women's Federation, exchanges gifts with Valentina Matwiyenko, the mayor of St Petersburg.

Take 73-year-old Sun Guiyu, retired geology professor from Peking University, who was one of the first group of students dispatched by the Chinese government in 1954.

A native of Harbin, capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, she landed the rare chance of overseas studies owing to both her academic excellence and political reliability.

More than five decades later, she joined the Chinese delegation organized by the All-China Women's Federation, and returned to Russia as a folk artist during the Cultural Week. As she rose to make a speech, she saw one of her former classmates, a Russian, approach the stage. The two hugged and cried unabashedly before a large audience.

Svetlana Orlova, vice-chairwoman of the Federation Council of Russia in Moscow, was so moved by the scene that she referred to it in her speech saying, "It is a symbol of the two countries' friendship."

Sun arrived in Novocherkast, a small city in the south of Russia, in 1954 after a year's intensive language training in Beijing. There she joined the Novocherkast Mining Institute and studied geology and mining.

But a scarcity of commodities was sweeping across the country after Stalin's death, and the educational authority of the Soviet Union (SU) soon decided to put all overseas students in Moscow, where the scarcity was less severe.

Sun joined the Moscow Geological Institute and found 20 other Chinese students there. In her class were 23 students from SU states, seven Chinese, one North Korean, one German, one Mongolian, one Vietnamese and one Albanian.

The Chinese students studied hard. "We believed our expertise would be needed everywhere," says Sun. They were also encouraged by the 156 major projects which the SU promised in 1953 and 1954 to help China build in the next five years, and expected to work for these after graduation.

The relationship between young people from different countries of Communism International was "very nice and pure," according to Sun. It was unaffected by the subtle changes in relations between China and SU after 1956, and some Chinese even fell in love with their foreign classmates, which was forbidden at the time.

When the SU celebrated the 40th anniversary of the 1917 Revolution, which led to its founding, Communist leaders of more than 40 countries got together in Moscow and Mao Zedong arrived with a Chinese delegation in 1957. A convention was held at the Lenin Stadium and joined by 30,000 people. Song Qingling, then vice-chairman of China, gave an optimistic speech about bilateral relations.

One evening, Mao met the Chinese students and gave a speech which was repeatedly quoted throughout his era, especially during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). "The world is yours and also ours, but in the end it is yours," he said. "The young people are filled with vitality, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning."

The first group of Chinese students, numbering more than 800, graduated in 1959 and was welcomed by Liu Shaoqi, then vice-chairman of China, and Premier Zhou Enlai when they returned. They became engineers, officials and professors, and remained in contact with their foreign friends until 1962, when it was ordered that all contacts with the SU be cut off.

Some of them were tortured during the "cultural revolution", and those who courageously brought back their foreign lovers suffered from the breakup of families. Luckily, Sun escaped physical abuses although she was attacked in big-character posters.

When China re-opened its doors to the rest of the world and contacts were re-built between former classmates, Sun's foreign classmates were thrilled because they believed their Chinese friends would have died during the ten-year turmoil.

Sun spent one year at Moscow University as a visiting professor in 1991, and upon her arrival 13 of her friends flew from around Europe to give a welcome party. In 2000, she and two of her Chinese classmates took their families to Moscow, hoping this friendship could be continued by the younger generations.

For these youngsters, there is a friendship because the Russian youth are "cute, interesting and simple," says Li Wei, a Chinese young woman who studies biology at Moscow University and worked for the Cultural Week as a volunteer.

Russian youth belonged to different sub-cultures, she says. Those who dress themselves in punk styles and move around in groups are actually friendly and helpful, and even those who race on their motorbikes along the river are gentle and polite.

Lin Fang, also a volunteer at the Cultural Week, studied geology at Moscow University for seven years. According to her, Russia has a vibrant contemporary art scene, and it is a pity that the understanding of many Chinese, including the young, toward Russian culture is limited to that represented by the song "Evening in Moscow's Suburb", a Russian song popular in China in 1950-60s.

In her eyes, it is not difficult to merge into the local culture because young people in Moscow are open-minded and aware of cultural diversity.

"It is a foreign land," she says. "But not so foreign because there is something familiar here, especially in art and history."

(China Daily 07/18/2007 page18)