A bronze statue of the great Korean novelist Pak Kyongni, author of the historical epic series “Land (Toji),” has been dedicated at a Russian university. The statue was unveiled in a ceremony on Wednesday (Russia time) on the campus of Saint Petersburg State University in Saint Petersburg by the Korea-Russia Dialogue, a civilian dialogue channel between the two countries. It is the oldest and one of the largest universities in Russia. On hand at the ceremony were about 40 Korean and Russian officials, including Do Jong-whan, Korea’s minister of culture, sports and tourism, and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Medinsky and Nikolay Kropachev, president of the university. The project has been in the works since 2013 when the forum built a bronze statue of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin in front of the Lotte Hotel in central Seoul at the request of the Russian Writers’ Union to help further relations between the two countries.