THE rich heritage of Russian literature was celebrated by children who put read poems and performed limericks and fairytales.

Pupils of the Rubric Russian School put on short stage acts from Alexander Pushkin poems The Fairy-tale of Tzar Saltan and Ruslan and Liudmila at the celebrations of The Russian Book Day in Worcester.

The children also acted out Ivan Krilov’s fables The Cat and Chef, The Elephant and Moska and narrated Natalia Konchalovskaya’s stories about Moscow and Saint-Petersburg.

Pre-school children played a traditional fairytale story Teremok and performed limericks by Russian children’s writers for their parents and friends.

Teacher Ksenia Campbell-Ferguson said: “We think that it is important for our pupils, most of whom are bilingual from birth, to be introduced to the rich heritage of Russian literature as soon as possible.

“We encourage parents to read with their children at home and use the Russian children’s and adults’ book sections at The Hive library more often.

"Soon we are planning to stage the Golden Cockerel with the original text by Alexander Pushkin and hold an exhibition of the wonderful illustrations to Michael Bulgakov’s masterpiece Master and Margarita by the Worcester based well-known children’s books writer and illustrator Petr Horacek."

Nadezhda Loginova, the head of the all seven Rubric schools in The Midlands said they organised the book festival every year with older pupils travelling to Russia. "Last year they participated in the educational programme at the Alexander Pushkin museum in Mikhailovskoe in the Pskov region of Russia and this year joined the writing workshops at the Anton Chekhov and Michael Bulgakov Museums in Moscow.

"I’m really pleased that in Worcester we have a good number of pupils who were winners in the poetry and art competitions organised in London by the Russian cultural organisation Rossotrudnichestvo."