TEHRAN – The statue of Persian mathematician, astronomer and poet Omar Khayyam (1048-1131) was unveiled in the Russian city of Astrakhan during a ceremony on Thursday.

Attending the ceremony were a number of Iranian and Russian officials, including Astrakhan Regional Governor Aleksandr Zhilkin, Governor-general of Iran’s Gilan Province Mohammad-Ali Najafi and Iranian Ambassador Mehdi Sanai.

The 4.5-meter-tall bronze statue has been situated in the student garden in front of the Astrakhan State University, Persian media reported on Friday.

Commissioned by the Gilan Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, the 1.5-tonne statue was cast in Yekaterinburg, the fourth-largest city in Russia. 

Speaking at the ceremony, Zhilkin called the monument of the great Persian poet a symbol of sincere friendship between the two countries.

For his part, Najafi said that the two countries and the two provinces of Gilan and Astrakhan have begun to experience a new era of developing relations in the cultural and economic arenas.

Sanai also remarked that situating the statue of Khayyam in Astrakhan reveals the lengthy friendship between the two countries.

The statue has been located near the greatest Turkmen poet, Makhtum-Qoli Faraghi (1733-1790), who is considered to be the founder of authentic Turkmen literature.

Khayyam, a Persian mathematician, astronomer and poet, was renowned in his own country and in his own lifetime for his scientific achievements, but is chiefly known to English-speaking readers through the translation by the English writer Edward Fitzgerald of a collection of his Rubaiyat (“quatrains”) in “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” (1859).

Photo: A man in Astrakhan gets a look at a statue of Persian poet Omar Khayyam after it was unveiled in the Russian city on August 4, 2016.

RM/YAW