Poland’s veteran film director Andrzej Wajda will receive the Order of Friendship of the Russian Federation from the hands of President Dmitry Medvedev.

The ceremony will be held on Monday, most probably in the Palace of the Water in Warsaw’s Lazienki Park, where the Polish and Russian Presidents will inaugurate the 5th Bilateral Forum of Civic Dialogue.

Wajda (pictured right) is honoured for his great contribution to the development of Polish-Russian cultural relations.

The Russian President’s press office informed of the Order of Friendship for Wajda in August but the ceremony was postponed until Medvedev’s  visit to Poland.

In an interview for the Polish Press Agency in August Wajda said: ‘It’s wonderful. I am delighted it happened to me in my old age’. He stressed the importance of the screening of his film Katyn on Russian Television, where it attracted an audience of well over ten million. ‘With my film, the subject, which has been a taboo in Russia since 1940, was suddenly brought to public attention,’ he said.

Wajda’s feature is about the 1940 Katyn massacre of over 22,000 Polish officers who were taken prisoner following the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939. (mk/jb)