MOSCOW, September 27 (RIA Novosti) – A son of former longtime Cuban leader Fidel Castro was on Friday named an honorary professor at Russia’s prestigious Moscow State University, from which the son graduated in 1974 with a degree in nuclear physics.
Fidel Angel Castro Diaz-Balart, who has been the scientific adviser to Cuba’s Council of State since 2003, reportedly studied at the Moscow university under the name Jose Raul Fernandez to conceal his relation to the Cuban revolutionary and used that name to publish more than 30 scientific works.
Castro Diaz-Balart has also received an honorary Ph.D. from Russia’s National Research Nuclear University.
He said at the Moscow State University conferment ceremony on Friday that the professor title was an honor to him personally and “a symbol of the efforts and achievements of all those Cubans with whom I was lucky to receive an education in this great country, especially at its main and most prestigious university.”
Moscow State University has in the past named as honorary professors former Mayor Yury Luzhkov, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon and UN chief Ban Ki-moon, among others.
