On March 22, 2023, a presentation was held at the exhibition space in Serebryanichesky Lane, 8, in Moscow, for a monument to Nikita Tolstoy, an outstanding Soviet and Russian linguist and member of the USSR and Russian Academy of Sciences.

The event was attended by:

— Aidyn Zeinalov, the sculptor of the monument, member of the Russian Academy of Arts and Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze;
— Vladimir Tolstoy, Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation on Culture and Arts;
— Svetlana Tolstaya, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, linguist, and Nikita Tolstoy’s widow;
— Alexander Grushko, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation;
— Momčilo Babić, Serbia’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Russia;
— Alexander Alimov, Director of the Department for Multilateral Humanitarian Cooperation and Cultural Relations at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
— Elena Kharlamova, Director of the Department of Museums and International Relations at the Russian Ministry of Culture;
— Alexey Petrov, Deputy Head of the Department for Relations with Compatriots and Historical and Memorial Affairs;
— employees of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Federal Agency for the International Humanitarian Cooperation, and other notable guests.

The event was timed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Nikita Tolstoy’s birth and to mark the unveiling of the monument in Vršac, Serbia, which took place on April 15, 2023.

Nikita Tolstoy was an eminent linguist, folklorist, ethnographer, and a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Tolstoy used to say that he had two native countries and two native languages. “I emerged from oblivion two years later in these Transdanubian Serbian lands, in the charming town of Vršac… That is why I am a man of two cultures: having embraced Serbian culture as my own in my childhood and adolescence, I still feel this way, while, of course, also considering the Russian culture as my own and as that of my ancestors,” Tolstoy wrote.
Maintaining close ties with Serbian researchers, Tolstoy studied Serbian language and culture and encouraged his students to also focus on Serbian culture. A street in Vršac was named after Tolstoy in 2005 in recognition of his work and his dedication to the Serbian people. Eighteen years later, a monument to Nikita Tolstoy is set to be erected in the town.

The project was realized through the joint efforts of Vladimir Tolstoy, Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation on Culture, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Russian House in Belgrade, and the Embassy of the Republic of Serbia.