It’s time to apply for the 2011 Global Institute program! After a wildly successful 2010 pilot program, we are expanding and changing the GI program for next year. We’re seeking out a total of 10 participants from Kurgan and the Fox Cities, and have a great program in store! For more details, click here.
With featured works from Kurgan painters Vyacheslav Pichugin and German Travnikov, the “Painted Russia” exhibit opens September 16, 2011 at the Trout Museum of Art in Appleton, WI. The exhibition is part of a larger collection on display of post-impressionist painters, who utilize a style very similar to that Pichugin employs in his work. The exhibit will be on display until February 24, 2012.
A number of paintings are on loan from local collectors and friends of the artists who have connected throughout the years on various programs with the Fox Cities-Kurgan Sister Cities organization. A small collection of Pichugin’s work was recently on display in Washington, DC, where an exhibition was just completed.
Pichugin recorded a greeting for the opening of the exhibit, with a message of friendship for Kurgan. Watch the video here:
For more information about the exhibit, please contact Brett Schilke with the Fox Cities-Kurgan Sister Cities Program, at bjschilke@foxcitieskurgan.org, or the Trout Museum of Art, at 920-733-4098.
Just like in the Fox Cities, the community here in Kurgan is abuzz with new ideas and new energy to move our partnership forward. With a 20th Anniversary celebration and community roundtable in Russia to round out our anniversary year, new parts of the Kurgan community have been brought into our program and are working to develop ideas and projects for the future. We have welcomed Kurgan Gymansiums 19, 27, and 47 as official partners in educational programs, as well as the Kurgan Academy of Labour and Social Relations. These educational institutions dedicate not only time, but also financial support to the programs and projects of the sister cities partnership. Tune into the Fox Cities-Kurgan Sister Cities Program YouTube Channel or Facebook Page to see a video, titled “From Russia With Love,” created by the students from Gymnasium 19, for all our friends in Appleton.
Kurgan continues to change before my eyes every day. This past summer saw a massive overhaul of many roads, and the new state-funded Youth Park in the center of the city is growing with the recent completion of a state-of-the-art ice arena. A sports facility has already been operating in the park for more than a year, and workers broke ground (at 30 below zero!) for a new swimming pool last week. The city government has enthusiastically embraced the new wind in our partnership, and is working to establish an offical partner organization in Russia as well as to encourage participation and energy from various parts of the community.
The city newspaper, “Kurgan and Kurganians” celebrated their own 20th Anniversary just about a month ago, and on that day reprinted the first issue of their paper. It was so wonderful to see, because in the middle of that issue was an article and photo about the first delegation from Appleton visiting Kurgan. Our two communities really are connected more than even we realize, and have developed together through two decades of very memorable history and programs.
March 1st, the first day of spring by Russian tradition, will see the completion of the “Mosaic of Peace – Mosaic of the World” project in conjunction with the Academy of Labour and Social Relations. Nearly 200 students from around the city of Kurgan will participate in the event. Throughout the past two weeks, they have worked with A. Charlotte Grosclaude, a visiting artist from France, to decorate 20 cm ceramic tiles with their ideas of peace and friendship. The mosaic will be temporarily assembled at the Academy on March 1st, where it will then be prepared for permanent public installation in the city during the summer months.
The support and excitement here in Kurgan is so thick you can feel it in the air. From schools and universities to city agencies and the mayor himself, people are optimistic and energized, looking for new ways to accomplish more together as our relationship matures and our partnerships grows stronger still.
- Content submitted by Fox Cities-Kurgan Sister Cities Program Board Member Brett Schilke
The 20th Anniversary “Beet the Borsch” Celebration was a great success! Thank you to all who participated and joined us for the evening of wonderful food and music.
Here is an article about the event and the week’s activities of the Kurgan delegation, published this week by the local press in Kurgan. For the original article in Russian, click here.
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Kurgan delegation returns from sister city, where the 20 year anniversary of friendship with Appleton was marked in a big way: heard a balalaika orchestra and tasted…yellow borsch.
by Ekaterina Lazareva, URA.ru News Service translation by Brett Schilke
Sister cities Kurgan and Appleton (USA) have marked 20 years of friendship, with a delegation from Kurgan traveling to the American city for the anniversary celebration: Elena Ovchinnikova, chairwoman of the regional branch of the Journalists’ Union; Ivan Kamshilov, deputy of the Kurgan city council; Natalya Bochegova, dean of the philology department at Kurgan State University; and Larisa Zhirova, lecturer.
In the words of Elena Ovchinnikova, the friendship with Kurgan is cherished in Appleton. The entire 20-year history of sister cities cooperation is collected there in documents and photos. “Americans appreciate and remember each day spent in our country. They want to return again to Russia,” noted the journalist.
In Appleton, Elena Ovchinnikova visited the offices of their local newspaper “The Post-Crescent.” The paper is published daily, including weekends, and the size of the newspaper is not small, 30-40 pages per day. Cooperation between mass media in Kurgan and Appleton has not yet been established. According to Ovchinnikova, Americans follow the happenings in their sister city on the website of the “Kurgan and Kurganians” newspaper, and they are ready to exchange news. Both sides have the opinion that, in addition to the already-established partnership between universities in the two cities, friendship should also be forged between journalists.
The Russian National Unity Day, the 4th of November, became a Russian day in Appleton as well. At Lawrence University, where Russian language and culture are studied in-depth, Americans prepared…borsch…in honor of the guests. The Kurgan delegation of course did not remain on the sidelines and prepared their own example of borsch. Some of the soups in the American offerings were imaginative – in the process of cooking, not only were traditional red beets used, but also yellow, leading the cooks to name that variety Yellow Borsch. “About 1,000 people came to the event, not even connected to Russian culture, and everyone tried the borsch,” said Ovchinnikova.
What struck the Kurganians most of all was a concert by a balalaika orchestra. “It was the first time I’ve ever heard a balalaika orchestra. And where did it happen? In America!” Ovchinnikova shared.
For a couple days of the stay in America, the Kurgan delegation took part in Russian-American discussions of contemporary problems, attended a meeting of the local Rotary Club, and also visited six schools. American students study Russia, her culture, and history in 3rd, 7th, and 10th grades. Each of the Kurgan visitors led 18 mini-classes. Natalya Bochegova showed children Russian cartoons, Elena Ovchinnikova taught 3rd graders how to write their names in Russian, and Larisa Zhirova talked about Russian culture, showed traditional nesting dolls, and sang songs about Russian birch trees.
The journalist noted, “What struck me was that Americans wake up so early. People there work so much, and practically don’t drink at all. I confess that we were tired out. And without a doubt, we need to intensify our partnership.”
It took at least three tries before a Sister Cities match was made between Kurgan, Russia and the Fox Cities in Wisconsin during a period in world history still haunted by echoes of the Cold War.
But in April 1990, government officials of Kurgan and Appleton signed an agreement to become sister cities – an agreement that has grown to embrace the Kurgan region and the Fox Valley Region, an agreement that has resulted in dozens of delegations including hundreds of people traveling back and forth between countries as citizen diplomats.
In November, the Fox Cities-Kurgan Sister Cities organization, a local non-profit that has supported the work, will mark the 20th Anniversary of the friendships that have evolved from wide civic engagement in both geographic regions.
Line-up for Nov. 4:
“Beet the Borsch,” billed as an Iron Chef-style cooking competition in partnership with Fox Valley Technical College’s Department of Culinary Arts;
A Russian Dinner (with the borsch) and Program;
An evening concert with the University of Wisconsin Russian Folk Orchestra.
Line-up for Nov. 5:
A morning of global conversations about the lives and interests of people connected during two decades.
The Sister Cities organization has designated Brett Schilke as the project manager for the celebration. He started as a volunteer for the organization in 2003 when he was a student at Neenah High School and managed the student conference components of the International Communities Partnerships Conference, which included an appearance by the last president of the former Soviet Union, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, speaking to a full house at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center.
Schilke subsequently studied at UW-Madison where he majored in cross-cultural psychology with a concentration in Russian. He has traveled to Kurgan three times where he most recently was a visiting lecturer at the Academy of Labour and Social Relations.
The organizations wishes to reach the hundreds of area people who have been part of this Sister Cities experience to make certain they know about the events and to guarantee that complete lists of people touched by the exchanges are refreshed and updated for historic and archival reasons.
Those wanting to provide or seek information should contact Schilke at 920-358-0871 or email him at info@foxcitieskurgan.org.
How often can you see a group of 30 students belting out the lyrics to “On Wisconsin” while standing in a city square on a statue of Lenin, more than 13,000 kilometers away from the song’s home of Madison, Wisconsin?
Not very often.
But my students in Kurgan decided to do just that as part of an entry in the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s Spirit Day competition on April 23. As a graduate of the UW, I got an e-mail about the photo contest the alumni association was hosting and thought it would be fun to get my students involved and show our pride for the state which is home to so many of their friends!
So, to celebrate the years of partnership between Kurgan and the Fox Cities, as well as to show how much we love Wisconsin – even while in the middle of Siberia – we got together a group of students and spent three weeks learning the words to “On, Wisconsin.” The video consists mostly of the practice round held in the school’s auditorium, but the clips from the event in the city square make it great. And it was on Lenin’s birthday, no less.
May 9th marked the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II (The Great Patriotic War in Russia), and the holiday was celebrated in style in Kurgan! The entire city was spruced up, and the events included a parade, a military salute, a photo exhibition at our partner institution, the Academy of Labour and Social Relations, and even lectures by a visiting professor from The Smithsonian, brought in by the United States Consulate in Ekaterinburg and hosted in Kurgan by the local Rotary Club.
Here’s a link to some great photos posted on the Oblast web site after the event.
Today marks the launch of www.foxcitieskurgan.org, a new bi-lingual portal for our communities to connect with one another and participate in our programs actively.
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