News of the Kotlas Connection

• Kotlas Mayor And Delegation To Visit
• Voices Of The Kennebec Festival Held
• Russian Sampler Held

Alexander Shashurin at his desk in Kotlas.

By Herb Foster, with additions by Gregor Smith

The Kotlas-Waterville Area Sister City Connection is very excited about an upcoming visit by a high level delegation from our Russian sister city. On June 12, Kotlas mayor Alexander Shashurin will be coming to Waterville for eight days to learn about economic development. This visit will be the first to Waterville by a Kotlas mayor since June 1990, when Shashurin's predecessor, Victor Zverev, came and formally inaugurated our sister city ties.

The mayor will be leading a five-person delegation. Also coming are Andrei Bralnin, the deputy mayor; Andrei Palkin, a prominent Kotlas businessman; and Vladimir Piskurev, a Moscow businessman. Yevgeniy Gribov, a bilingual facilitator, will accompany the delegation to help them through the pitfalls of international air travel and translate as needed.

The visit has been made possible by a grant from the Open World Leadership Program, which is funded by the Library of Congress and administered, in part, by Sister Cities International (SCI), a nonprofit organization that promotes partnerships between U.S. and international communities. According to SCI's web site, the program "aims to promote ideas of accountability, transparency, and citizen participation in government by bringing Russian, Ukrainian and Uzbek elected officials, political candidates, and emerging political and civic leaders to the United States. . . Local communities will host four delegates and a facilitator for a ten-day visit, and receive small grants to support the activities of their visiting delegations. Main program themes are Education, Economic Development, Environment, Health Issues, Federalism, Rule of Law, Youth Issues, and Women as Leaders. Out of these themes, our local communities . . . prepare a program of professional activities to cover various aspects of the theme and address professional interest[s] of the participants."

Since economic development was the theme of our grant proposal to SCI, the delegates will tour as many governmental agencies and commercial enterprises as is feasible during their eight-day stay. They will also meet with local officials and business people to study the structure of city government, to see how our budget is arrived at, to learn about our riverfront development and downtown revitalization, and to study city planning and zoning. To learn about state government, the delegates will meet the governor and selected state economic development officials in Augusta. They will also spend a day at the Mid-Maine Technical Center and the Kennebec Valley Community College to see how local educational institutions provide training to meet the needs of local businesses. These meetings and tours will enable them to return to Kotlas with an understanding of how our government works and hopefully to take with them some ideas from the commercial sector that can help the economy of the Kotlas area.

But the visit won't be all work. The grant also stipulates that our guests be shown some of the sights of our area and be treated to cultural activities. So, a trip to the coast is planned, including a visit to the colonial fort, archeological digs, and lighthouse at Pemaquid. An outdoor barbecue is on tap at the camp of Neal and Martha Patterson, and on their last night here our guests will be treated to a traditional Maine lobster feed.

The grant requires that the delegates stay with host families to familiarize them with American home life. Committee members Phil Gonyar, Herb Foster, Ellen Corey and John Engle will each host a delegate, and Mary Coombs will host the facilitator. Outgoing committee co-chairman, Jack Mayhew, who was instrumental in bringing the group to Waterville, will serve as visit coordinator with his wife Pauline.

A public reception is planned for Thursday evening, June 17, at 7:00 p.m. in the REM Forum at The Center, and the Committee would love to have area residents come and say hello to our guests. Refreshments will be provided.

Russian books and folk art on display on the Kotlas Connection table at Voices of the Kennebec.

Voices of the Kennebec, has now become the Kotlas Committee's second largest fund raiser, after its annual ornament sales in December. Held annually on the first Saturday in June, the fesitval celebrates the ethnic diversity found in the Waterville area. On the festal day, there is music, food, and activities of many types at the Head of Falls, once a thriving ethnic neighbor­hood, now a riverfront field awaiting redevelopment.

This year's event, held on June 5, from 12 to 6 p.m., was blessed with great weather. It also drew additional crowds, as it was held in conjunction with National Trails Day. Because of the latter, the food stalls were allowed to open at noon, as walkers trickled in from Fairfield and other sections of the trail. These factors all helped boost sales a little.

What was even more helpful, we feel, was a change in our menu and decreased competition, as least one other popular concessionaire didn't take participate this year. We added meat borscht to our regular menu of vegetarian borscht, as well as kielbasa and sauerkraut. We also doubled our dessert offerings. We even tried a combination plate, which included soup, kielbasa with dark bread or a roll, sauerkraut, and a dessert. We sold out of kielbasa and sauerkraut!

Besides the food, we sold wooden handmade Russian ornaments and knickknacks and raffled a painting left over from our June 1997 art exchange with Kotlas. The net result was that we took in $750.00, nearly double the previous best year's total. All proceeds from the sales and raffle will benefit the Connection's exchange programs.

The tenth annual Sampler at Colby College on Monday, March 22 was a huge success. About 175 students and nearly 30 instructors participated in this event, which was sponsored by the Colby Russian Department and the Kotlas Connection.

For those who have no knowledge of what we do on this day, we can only say, come see for yourself. It's a day on which middle school students from all over central Maine come to Colby for five hours of immersion in everything Russian. There are hands-on sessions in crafts, classes in history and language, and even food preparation. Our invitee from Kotlas this year was denied a visa, but other Russian nationals were there to help, as were many members of the Kotlas Connection.

Briefly Noted:

• Knowledge of the Kotlas-Waterville Sister City Connection has spread as far as South Windsor, CT. Phil Gonyar was invited by the South Windsor Public Library staff to exhibit his Russian materials and speak to the Friends of the Library organization about Kotlas. They were an appreciative audience.

<— Previous • Top • All News • Next —>

About Us | About Kotlas | Newsletters | Impressions | Our Projects | Membership
Other Exchanges | Contact Us | Home