Letter: Failure to export British culture

Sir: Ruth Dudley Edwards's 'Our man on a shoestring' (8 June) makes sad reading. There may be wry humour in the story of a British Ambassador occupying one room of a large German embassy in Minsk, but the implications are serious. Such neglect of our good name abroad is widespread.

Having just returned from lecturing in Ashkhabad, the striking capital of Turkmenistan, I can report similar neglect. As the first British writer to visit this former Soviet republic, I was often asked what the British were planning to do there. Treasury cuts mean any plans for action are non-existent, but English is now being taught - sometimes by people of Indian origin - in Ashkhabad's schools as the third language, after native Turkic and Russian.

The eagerness of a young generation to learn about the outside world is manifest. As Ruth Dudley Edwards reports of Belarus, in Turkmenistan there exists a healthy appetite for English culture. But because of the shortage of books, teachers and - for instance - any British Council presence, the English class of the university with which I talked are studying John Cheever, an American author. They have no English books.

The Turkmen Minister of Culture is eager to change this situation. How one wishes the authorities here felt the same.

Yours faithfully,

BRIAN W. ALDISS

Oxford

8 June