"The award was not only a great honor, but also a huge responsibility," said Galina Kulikova, first deputy chairperson of the Russia-China Friendship Association, who was granted China's Friendship Medal recently.

Earlier this month, Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a presidential decree to award 42 Chinese and foreign individuals national medals and honorary titles, as the People's Republic of China (PRC) prepares to celebrate its 70th anniversary.

The award has special significance in the year marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the PRC and the establishment of Russia-China diplomatic ties, Kulikova told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"I developed an interest in China at school in fifth or sixth grade when I started reading a lot about China. When I graduated from high school, I said I would go to places where they studied China," she said.

Kulikova studied at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and then participated in the founding of the Soviet (Russia)-China Friendship Association in 1957, where she has been working for 62 years.

"The Friendship Medal is not only awarded to me. It is an award to those thousands and thousands of people I worked with all these years," Kulikova said.

"In general, this award belongs to all those millions of Russians who believe that China is our friend and believe in the friendship with this great country and this great people. The number of such people is growing from year to year," she said.

The Russia-China Friendship Association is considered a leader of public diplomacy in bilateral relations and it does a lot to expand the social base of bilateral cooperation, said Kulikova.

"There can be no development of broad cooperation until people start supporting the ideas proposed by the leaders and until people understand why something has to be done. That is why our association is engaged in public diplomacy," she said.

Kulikova has been invited to witness the military parade at the Tian'anmen Square in central Beijing on Oct. 1, joining the Chinese people in the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the PRC. She also attended such celebrations on the 40th, 50th and 60th founding anniversaries of the PRC.

Kulikova believes that Russia-China ties have reached a record high, which means that mutual trust has grown significantly.

"Our heads of state show an example of trust. They met numerous times, discussed various issues and called each other good friends," she said.

She praised Russia-China cooperation in the economic and trade, sci-tech, and military sectors, and she expected to see closer cooperation in a broader range of areas between the two countries.

"While I am alive, I will continue my beloved work. I have dedicated myself to this and will devote the rest of my life to it," said the 84-year-old sinologist.