Dear CCI Friends,

I am prepping for an autumn trip to Russia, leaving on September 26th and returning on October 17. You will receive fewer CCI emails during this time. However we will send trip reports as we travel throughout Russia.

CCI volunteer Paula Day will travel with me for meetings in Moscow, Irkutsk out in Siberia, then south to Krasnodar, Crimea’s three cities, Volgograd and St. Petersburg. At about the same time on another route, CCI volunteers Krishen Mehta and Dennis Orblad will travel to Moscow, Kazan and several other Russian cities. We will explore various aspects of each city. Also, we will meet with our Russian PEP Fellows to see if they wish to host CCI delegates traveling to Russia (June 20 – July 5, 2022). More about this large delegation after we return home in October.

Unfortunately, CCI travelers are about the only Americans getting fresh eyes on Russia these days. During my June trip, tour buses were absent on Russian streets, hotel lobbies appeared near empty. It was strange to observe. But happily, Russians had their cities all to themselves during COVID! Russia’s “White Nights” of June and July have always been packed with tourists from abroad.

The upside was clear — Russians were really enjoying their parks, canals, sidewalks and streets. Even auto drivers seemed patient to share space with bicycles, roller skaters and scooters! It all looked like great fun …and there was no honking of horns. My apartment balcony looks down on an intersection of four streets and two driveways to other streets. I watched this flow of traffic and people for hours at a time. When COVID vanishes, Russians will remember these years when they had their streets and canals to themselves, a time when they didn’t have to dodge tourists.

From the beginning of COVID, travel between our countries all but stopped, except for Russians living here in the United States who take annual trips home to Russia. This past June I traveled on a huge Aeroflot plane along with hundreds of Russian mothers taking their babies and young children back to Russian grandparents for the summer. This is a long, long Russian tradition which apparently those living in the West still consider important. I saw no other Americans on the plane.

More to follow as time permits during the coming weeks!

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

Dear CCI Followers,

Pardon my absence and lack of communication.

I’ve just returned from St. Petersburg, but didn’t make it to Moscow. Temperatures up to 130 degrees were predicted and I was advised not to come to Moscow. St. Petersburg was 100 degrees with humidity upwards to 70%. Canals across the city guaranteed that the air felt thick to breathe to this foreigner.

Local residents seemed impervious to heat and humidity! Sidewalks were full of boys and girls, men and women, enjoying their lovely city during the beginning of “White Nights”. The setting sun in the west was brilliant with ever-changing gold, soft orange mixed with light yellow and blue. The eastern sky was already revealing the new sun on the rise. No wonder the temperatures were sky-high.

The new Russia has truly arrived!
I spent hours each day on the streets or watching street and sidewalk traffic from my second-floor apartment. Due to COVID, short work days left residents lots of time to enjoy their renovated city. There were few masks to be seen. And vaccinated persons are about 10% of the population.

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Dear CCI Friends,

This week I was invited to Zoom with the St. Petersburg Russia’s International Rotary Club members.

They wanted an overview of CCI’s work between our two nations. I couldn’t understand how to tell our 38-year-history in less than an hour. However, different questions from the attendees brought out information (formal and informal) that may be of interest to you. Many of you worked along side us carrying out programs that otherwise would have never been possible.

We were all just ordinary citizens working our hearts out to try to avoid nuclear war and bring peace to our world. I will forever be grateful for your support without which CCI could have never existed.Click here to check out the Zoom:  https://youtu.be/N0yP7FgVavc?t=972

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives