Organized by the "Lidery Peremen" autonomous non-profit organization (which continues to work on the Digital tablecloth "Volgograd – Coventry – 80 years of mutual support"), the meetings was moderated by a Volgograd journalist Oksana Margiani and the head of the "Volgograd-Coventry" Friendship Society Natalya Alshuk. The list of speakers and listeners was made up of people who made a personal contribution to the development and the strengthening of the twinning ties between their cities.

Yury Starovatykh, ex-mayor of Volgograd, Chair of the Volgograd regional branch of the Russian Peace Foundation, commented on the ongoing cooperation between Volgograd and its German partner-cities. He emphasized that even now their local leaders hold citizen-to-citizen contacts in a very high esteem and believe them to be the only way we can keep in touch at all times, even the toughest ones.

Irina Kareva, Deputy Rector of the Pavel Serebriakov Volgograd Conservatory, former member and Chair of Volgograd City Duma, spoke about the cultural and educational projects that Volgograd had done with its sister cities.

Natalya Oreshkina, Head of the "Lidery Peremen", announced that the Volgograd-Coventry Digital Tablecloth would be publicly displayed in Volgograd already this May. After that, its "tangible" version will be stored in the "Stalingrad Battle" panorama museum, to be transferred to Coventry after the English city's authorities have officially resumed its twinning links with Volgograd. The participants of the project – that is, the residents of both cities – will still receive their commemorative gifts: custom-made tea towels, a cozy call back to the tablecloth's original purpose.

The floor was also given to the representatives of Volgograd's sister-cities.

Olga Lawson, Chair of the "Coventry-Volgograd" Friendship Committee, made a presentation about her introduction to Volgograd International Friendship Club, about how the Forum of the UK and Russian Sister-Cities was established, and how their work never stopped even during a pandemic.

Hagani Assizade, a representative of Izmir, answered the moderators' question about how twinning helps in the education of children, and spoke about the projects uniting the littlest people's diplomats of Izmir and Volgograd.

Michel Faitot, President of the "Bourgogne-Eurcasie" association from Dijon, gave a short lecture about Canon Cyrus, the member of the French Resistance Movement who singlehandedly made a huge contribution to the establishment of the friendship links between Stalingrad and Dijon.

Among the speakers, one could also spot the representatives of friendship associations uniting other Russian and English cities – Olga Zabotkina from the "Durham-Kostroma" Friendship Society and Anton Konev from the "Albany and Tula" Alliance.

In conclusion, schoolchildren and students of Volgograd, who had taken part in educational and cultural exchanges between their educational institutions and their partners in sister-cities, described their experience.

At the end of the meeting, Natalya Alshuk and Irina Kareva made the Volgograd Museum of Local History a gift of several very special exhibits, including a photo album dedicated to the visit of the Soviet delegation to Ostrava in 1974 and decorated with the inscription "for Volgograd friends to remember their journey".

The RCIA expects that this meeting will launch a whole series of similar events.