ST PETERSBURG - Russia's annual Likhachov Prize achievement was awarded Friday to Liu Wenfei, a scholar from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), and four top Russian contributors.

Liu, a research fellow at the CASS Institute of Foreign Literature, has thus become the first Chinese scholar to win the prize.

The Prize Committee recognized Liu's contribution to the dissemination of the Russian literature in China through his work as a translator of the great names of Russian literature, including Pushkin, Dostoyevsky and Gogol.

The Likhachov Prize, jointly sponsored by the Likhachov Foundation and the municipal government of St Petersburg, was established in 2006 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Russian scholar and activist Dmitry Likhachov.