Bringing Russian and American citizens together in Peace since 1983.
Another foto-journal from Mike Metz, a member of CCI’s current AMMR delegation.
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
At the university in Sevastopol, we visited with students of English, pictured below, smart young kids planning careers as interpreters, their rightly proud professor on the left. These young people look, act and sound like U.S. college students, with similar hopes for the future, views on women’s rights, and how gay people should be treated.
Dear CCI Readers,
Mike Metz shares his experience in Crimea. Enjoy!
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
We’re in Yalta, Crimea, today, made famous by “the big three,” Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, at the end of WWII. Here’s the view those old boys would have had when they awoke:
Dear CCI Friends,
The following foto-journal from Mike Metz covers our meeting with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
Spent two hours with Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the USSR today, he’s 88 and showing it, but still very sharp. That’s Sharon Tennison, our trip leader on the right, his interpreter on the left.
[Continue Reading]
Dear Friends of CCI,
Mike Metz has sent another contribution to our foto-journals. He covers our entrance into Moscow and first days there. Experience his initial impressions of Russia along with us.
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
Coming out of a shiny new airport into the Moscow air one is hit with a Times Square-size digital billboard for Hyundai. The city is wealthy and clean, with wide boulevards, new shiny cars, and the same McDonalds, KFC, and Louis Vuitton shops as London, Beijing, or New York.
Our first session is with an American businessman, been here 20 years, came over with a large US company in the heydays of the nineties when fortunes were to be made. Had much to say about Putin, Trump, the sanctions, the Russian economy, but what struck me was when he said of US-Russian relations, “I think it always helps to try and understand what’s in the other fellow’s mind.”
The following letter was written by Sylvia Demarest, a trial lawyer from Dallas, Texas. Sylvia is one of the travelers on CCI’s current AMMR (Americans Meet Mainstream Russians) delegation.
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
Dear Friends:
I wanted to take some time to report a few of my impressions of Moscow and today’s Russia over the last few days. I was in Russia in 1988 as part of a legal group before the collapse of the Soviet Union. I have been looking forward to seeing what has changed in the country over the last 30 years.
Remember, the Russian Federation was established in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Eastern Europe broke free and the Russian economy collapsed into depression under the “shock therapy” the US supported under Yeltsin. The goal was the end of communism and state ownership of business and resources. Over the next 9 years, Russia’s resources and businesses were gobbled/stolen? up by the “Oligarchs”, often with US support. In 1998 a financial crisis resulted in the collapse of the ruble and a default on Russia’s debt. In March of 2000, V.V. Putin became President of the Russian Federation. Eighteen years ago, Russia was flat on it’s back, in debt, poor, demoralized, its economy and infrastructure degraded or destroyed. Life expectancy had collapsed, millions had died, as Russia went through the greatest depression of the 20th Century in a country not at war.
I landed at Domodedovo airport on August 31st at around 2:40 pm. I was traveling alone. I had no idea how hard it would be to get through immigration, find my bags, find a cab and get to my hotel. The whole process turned out to be quick and very simple. A polite, well-dressed, English-speaking representative of a cab company took me under his wing, arranged a cab for me, took my bags and walked me to the cab. He gave instructions to the cab driver, loaded my bags, and shook my hand and said goodbye! You do not get treated like this in New York!!