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.
Following ‘Myths about Russia,’ we will post a YouTube video about the role of spirituality that is quietly growing throughout Russia … this seems very appropriate for the Christmas season! Afterward we will share fascinating footage from various Russian cities which our CCI groups visited in September. Lastly, the “Expert Reports” will continue after Christmas day.
Again, warm wishes to you during this wonderful Holiday Season!
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
PS: We will continue to post articles written by others that we feel are a ‘must’ to understand what is happening in US-Russia relations, which unfortunately are at an all-time low.