Few people know that Teacher's Day, celebrated in October, is also observed in distant Peru. In this country, there is the only private Russian school in Latin America, founded by our compatriot. The school has been operating for over 30 years.

Maya Romenez has lived in Lima since 1972. She moved there with her husband, Juan Rios, and together they founded the Russian school named after Maxim Gorky. It is the only private educational institution in Latin America where Russian literature, history, and culture are taught.

At first, Maya worked as a Russian language teacher in a Russian-Peruvian school, and in 1985 she opened her own. "It was not easy: local authorities viewed the school and us, immigrants from the USSR, with suspicion," she admits. Not only the government created difficulties: once, arriving at work, Maya found that the owner of the building had thrown all the desks, documents, and textbooks out onto the street. At that time, 250 children were studying at the school, and the parents helped save the school belongings by taking them to their apartments. Now about 200 children study at the school: six of them are Russian, the rest are Peruvians aged 4 to 18. All subjects are taught in Spanish, while Russian is studied as a foreign language. Maya, along with one of the teachers, prepared a textbook on the Russian language, the first professional publication of its kind in Peru. Mostly, women from Russia and former Soviet republics come to Peru after marrying Peruvians. Many of them immerse themselves so deeply in the local culture that they do not want to send their children to Russian-speaking schools. Their husbands believe that communication in Russian at home, with their mother, is enough. It is difficult to unite such people, but we try. In 2003, the association "With You, Russia" was created to unite Russians who find themselves far from their homeland and to tell Latin Americans about our culture. We often receive various requests. Recently, for example, the son of an aide to Wrangel, who ended up in Peru and married a Peruvian woman, reached out to us. He is already of respectable age, with adult children and grandchildren. He often travels to Russia and dreams of obtaining a Russian passport. We are trying to help him with this and expedite the process.