Dear friends,

The International contest on Thang Long - Hanoi "Hanoi - your destination" has been held annually since 2002. The organizing committee selects a different topic each year, through all of the topics aim at acquainting international friends with culture and history of Thang Long citadel. In the past three years, the contest has been organized in six languages English, French, Russian, Chinese, Esperanto and Vietnamese instead of only Esperanto in the early years. This contest has drawn the attention of thousands of people of various nationalities. Many of their essays reveal their deep love toward the capital city of Hanoi, which is the land of age-old civilization and home to interesting places and historical sites known all over the world. To promote the recorded achievements and contribute to the 1000th founding anniversary of Thang Long - Hanoi, the organization committee plans to launch the 2008 online contest with the topic of "Discovery of the historical and cultural heritages of Hanoi". It's different from the previous year, for this topic, beside the knowledge of studying about historical and cultural heritages, the organizing committee would like the international friends to understand more about Hanoi's age-old history, a peaceful city toward the international integration.

The organizing Committee would like to call for participation of international friends near and far and the community of overseas Vietnamese. Your enthusiasm already contributes to the success of the activities in commemoration of the 1000th founding anniversary of Thanh Long - Hanoi.

Thank you very much and I wish you all great success.