The Honorary Consulate of Austria in Yekaterinburg recently hosted a reception for representatives of the Russian Foreign Ministry, local leaders, and foreign diplomatic missions and businesses in honor of Austria's National Day.

"We want our countrymen to understand this country, its traditions, culture and the mentality of its inhabitants," Honorary Consul Andrei Kozitsyn, the director general of the Urals Mining and Metallurgical Company, said.

"Despite the fact that we are separated by thousands of miles, through the work of the Honorary Consulate the distance has been steadily declining," Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman in Yekaterinburg Alexander Harlov said.

The Consulate has for the past seven years organized activities such as its annual Vienna Music and Film Festival.

Austria's National Day has been celebrated since 1955, when the government approved the federal constitution declaring the country's permanent neutrality and forbidding it to join any military alliances.