Despite the significant time difference between the participating countries, the event gathered 43 people including the coordinators of, maybe, the most famous professional exchange program between Russia and the USA – the Open World Program.
 
One of the main discussion questions was “How to preserve the relations between the Russian and US sister-cities despite the political situation and the COVID crisis?”
 
If, like many of the meeting participants, you have encountered the problem of basic communication disruption (emails lost in transmission, the impossibility to get in touch by phone due to the time difference), the experienced colleagues discourage you from immediately blaming the American partners. A few years ago, the IT-departments at many US city offices, for security reasons, chose to block indiscriminately all emails coming from the Chinese and Russian IP-addresses – not always taking into account the resulting technical issues of their colleagues from the international department.
 
We suggest you to use regular mail once: a paper envelope will travel at length, but arrive for sure.
 
During the one month that had passed since the previous teleconference, the participating cities have managed to entice the universities in their territory to join the University Presidents Forum, suggested by the Vice-President of Moscow State University Yury Mazei. The extended meeting of the Forum, which united teaching, administrative and academic staff of the US and Russian higher education systems will be held in the end of January.
 
As for the representatives of local governments, they put forward a new initiative – dedicated to the Great Rivers of Russia and the US.
 
If your city, too, is standing on a great river, come back to us after February 9: it is on that day that the next meeting will be held and the initiative’s details agreed upon.
 
Or, maybe, you would like to join it personally? In that case, please, contact the Union of Russian Cities: www.urc.ru/contacts