Center for Citizen Initiatives

Bringing Russian and American citizens together in Peace since 1983.

You are here: Home / CCI News

(Video) Sharing the Holiday Spirit with You! … via CCI’s Upbeat YouTubes!

Our warmest wishes to you as we enter December 2018!!!

In the spirit of this wonderful month of Christmas, Hanukkah, Fiesta of Guadalupe, Kwanzaa and other holidays … we will share with you some of the great CCI experiences we had this year. It’s been a twelve month period full of Americans and Russians traveling to each others’ countries to dispel rumors, which unfortunately journalists haven’t taken the time to investigate for themselves.

We start this holiday month by posting our next video: “Ten Myths About Russia”.  Why? Well, because it’s upbeat, good news!  Also because relatively few Americans have visited Russia and certainly very few have traveled there within the past dozen years. Most of our American colleagues and reporters still have images cemented in their heads about Stalin’s labor camps and exterminations, Khrushchev’s boorish behaviors and poverty in the USSR, and lastly … the Yeltsin years of total societal breakdown: lawlessness, criminality, oligarchs and the final corrupting of Russian life. However, few if any are aware of what Russia has morphed into since year 2000.

[Continue Reading]

(Video) GORBACHEV Speaks Out to CCI Citizen Diplomats in September

Dear CCI Friends,

We are honored to have had a two-hour meeting with President Mikhail Gorbachev on September 4, 2018.  This event was prior to our delegation of U.S. ‘citizen diplomats’ traveling across Russia to investigate how fifteen far-out cities in ten regions are faring.

Gorbachev’s decades-long private interpreter, Pavel Palazhchenko, was present to assure that the interpretation was accurate. The two-hour visit was trimmed down to two 30-minute segments.

President Gorbachev felt it very important to get his message out to the American public, as you will learn from his own words. He was in the hospital the previous day, met with us, then returned for additional treatment the following day. Although his physical self is challenged, Gorbachev’s spirit took on the energy of his younger years to get his message across.  He wants his words to go to as many Americans as possible!

[Continue Reading]

NOVOSIBIRSK: Americans Look into Siberia’s Capital City

At the turn of the 20th century, Novosibirsk, the third largest city in Russia, burst into being like a meteor.  It was little more than a large village in 1897.  The original town was to be near the projected new Trans-Siberian rail hub with an additional connection to the north-south Turkestan-Siberia Railway.

Novosibirsk became one of the first places across Russia to institute compulsory primary education. With the Bolshevik Revolution underway, the Red Army took the city in 1921. Twenty-three years later, Novosibirsk had a population of nearly 300,000. By 1962, despite WWII, Novosibirsk had reached one million citizens.  At that time it was the youngest city in the world with over a million  people. Today over 1.5  million citizens reside in this capital city. Being so far away from Moscow, there has always been a strong entrepreneurial base within the population.

Nonna Barkhatova, CCI’s Director for many years, is second from the right in the photo below.  Nonna got her business degrees in England in the 90s.  She returned home and created a dynamic business center to facilitate the development of regional entrepreneurism. Soon she learned about CCI and began lobbying to be part of our network of Russian cities from which we identified Russia’s young entrepreneurs who were struggling to create their first businesses. Nonna was persistent, sending us stories of her struggling business developers. Within a year we decided to partner with her business center.  Nonna organized CCI’s September 2018 visit to her city. [Continue Reading]

Experience Saratov, Russia, through the eyes of three Americans!

Dear CCI Friends,

We have lots of September trip information to share with you –– YouTubes of experts, regional city experiences written by our travelers, and numbers of YouTubes about life within Russia today.

I’d hoped to start our September “tell all” with President Gorbachev’s YouTube!  However, there’s a technical glitch that needs to be dealt with. This may take up to a week, so we will share some of our regional reports in the interim.

Saratov, Russia
Formerly a Closed City due to being a Military Production Site

We had no personal connections with Saratov. Months earlier an unknown Saratov woman, Olga Andrianova, emailed saying she learned that CCI would bring Americans to Russia, and she lobbied me to include Saratov.  Further she offered to organize the stay of three Americans herself. Feeling her strong desire over email, Saratov became a regional city.

Let’s take a journey with Mike Abkin (an early retiree from an engineering career and first time traveler to Russia) and his partner Louise Karr, a psychologist. Nancy Madison, also an engineer in regulatory consulting from San Jose was the third traveler to Saratov.

Below is a link to Mike’s report about what happened! There are lots of photos embedded in his report and a wealth of insights about today’s Russia. Mike dutifully checked all facts and events with Louise and Nancy and forwarded this terrific journal shortly after coming back to the states.

Enjoy!

Sharon (signature)

 

 

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

Russia Reflections
By Mike Abkin

 

New CCI Strategies to Deal with Critical Year Ahead

Dear Friends of CCI,

This is a belated catch-up note.  I’m glad to be back in touch after a hiatus to recover from the last trip, coalesce our travelers’ experiences, and to edit numerous videos. Whoooo!

CCI has been a “dead run” for the entire year of 2018! Groups of Americans traveling across Russia to check out their stereotypes and investigate for themselves … and Russians coming to numerous American cities to address facts and fiction existing in both of our populations.

Our September trip was the most rigorous citizen diplomacy trip ever attempted in Russia by any organization, past or present. Our 25 mainstream travelers visited 15 Russian cities across 10 regions of Russia to investigate how each is faring far from Moscow and St. Petersburg. They brought back an enormous amount of information, video materials and photos which we will send to you over shortly.

Today US-Russia relations are as dangerous as they can get, short of an actual all-out nuclear war.  Amazingly, few Americans are informed or even interested in this issue. Our compatriots assume their comfortable lives will go on indefinitely.  Conversely, I feel compelled to “do the impossible” … something to break through this insanity. I keep hoping that others in powerful places will wake up!  Senator Rand Paul, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and a few others have, maybe others will wake up as well. But so far it isn’t happening enough to make a difference. This morning I watched Dan Ellsburg’s latest, “Hitler Wouldn’t Risk Doomsday, But The United States Did”, where Ellsburg reiterates how none of the top scientists and political advisors to Truman opted to tell him the truth about the A-bomb he was about to drop on the two Japanese cities. Some said it “wouldn’t be patriotic” and advised others not to tell!
Here is the link to that video: https://therealnews.com/stories/hitler-wouldnt-risk-doomsday-but-the-united-states-did-daniel-ellsberg-on-rai-2-8.
Watch this video, it is shocking.  Do we have top scientists and political advisors today who are NOT advising President Trump about the worldwide consequences of a “limited nuclear war?”

[Continue Reading]

Contact CCI

Contact Us

Join Our Email List

Subscribe