We Launch RMMA with the Following Announcement

March 15, 2018, 9:55 am

≫ Next: RMMA – Brief Report from Atlanta

≪ Previous: Invitation to Make a Difference in 2017!

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Russians Meet Mainstream Americans! (RMMA-pronounced Rama) will launch on March 20, 2018when a delegation of four enterprising Russians arrive at the Atlanta Airport! To answer the first question usually asked … No, they have nothing to do with the Russian government, except of course that they vote. Lena Novomeiskaya from Yekaterinburg, Natasha Ivanova from Krasnodar in the south, Tatyana Bukharina from Yalta in […]

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RMMA – Brief Report from Atlanta

March 26, 2018, 10:09 pm

≫ Next: RMMA is Moving Ahead Successfully!

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Hi CCI Followers! The first delegation of Russians Meet Mainstream Americans! (RMMA-pronounced Rama) is in flight from Atlanta to Dallas. Four Russian women from four different Russian regions met for the first time at the Moscow Airport. They flew to Atlanta where they were picked up by CCI board member Don Chapman and his wife Julie and […]

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RMMA is Moving Ahead Successfully!

March 29, 2018, 8:50 pm

≫ Next: RMMA Remaining Bay Area Events

≪ Previous: RMMA – Brief Report from Atlanta

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Dear CCI Friends, Please check this URL for an interesting and relatively short analysis on today’s Cold War:https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/west-and-russia-no-new-cold-war-by-sergei-karaganov-2018-03 It is from the Russian perspective, which calmly looks at the situation as something that has already happened and its major players are reacting/adjusting to what is in motion. It is a totally different assessment than that […]

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RMMA Remaining Bay Area Events

April 4, 2018, 1:44 pm

≫ Next: RMMA off to Washington, D.C.

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Weds April 4, 3pm: University of San Francisco, meet with professor and Eastern European class. Lone Mountain Campus, main entrance, room 245. Weds April 4, 7pm: Half Moon Bay town-wide invite. Odd Fellows Club, 526 Main Street. Thurs April 5, 4pm: Rossmoor in Walnut Creek: Group discussion. 1010 Stanley Dollar Drive, Creekside Facility, Fairway Room. […]

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RMMA off to Washington, D.C.

April 7, 2018, 11:12 pm

≫ Next: Waiting Out the Potential Strike On Syria

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Hi Friends of CCI, Surprise! Our RMMA Russian women have had fascinating receptions as they have traveled across the country discussing issues related to bottom-up U.S.-Russia diplomacy. Some 75 to 100 meetings have left no time to post since Atlanta. We still do not have a spare minute. Today, Russian Orthodox Easter Eve, our Russian friends leave […]

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Waiting Out the Potential Strike On Syria

April 16, 2018, 10:42 pm

≫ Next: “Bottom-Up Diplomacy” is Working!!!

≪ Previous: RMMA off to Washington, D.C.

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Midnight, April 13, 2018: I arrived home from Washington, D.C. with deep apprehensions regarding whether we as a nation, a world, a planet will make it through the dangerous turnstile in which we find ourselves. Mood in Washington, April 8 – 13: The immediate possibility of war between Syria and Russia was on TV screens in […]

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“Bottom-Up Diplomacy” is Working!!!

April 20, 2018, 4:17 pm

≫ Next: Travel to Russia With CCI in Autumn

≪ Previous: Waiting Out the Potential Strike On Syria

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Dear Friends, The first experiment of Russians Meet Mainstream America! (RMMA) exceeded our expectations beyond what we could have expected. Difficult questions were asked and honest, insightful answers were given by both Americans and Russians. The four Russian women who participated were authentic and grateful for the opportunity to be a bridge between our two nations. In each city volunteers […]

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Travel to Russia With CCI in Autumn

May 2, 2018, 2:28 pm

≫ Next: Away from Office – Taking Sister Cities International Group to Russia

≪ Previous: “Bottom-Up Diplomacy” is Working!!!

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CITIZENS MUST BECOME DIPLOMATS IN 2018! Are You Concerned We Aren’t Getting Accurate Information Regarding Russia? Participate with us as we travel to Russia August 30 – September 15, 2018. We will hold hundreds of discussions with officials and mainstream Russian citizens in eight regions throughout Russia. We will delve into both countries’ reasons and concerns regarding […]

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Away from Office – Taking Sister Cities International Group to Russia

May 26, 2018, 9:19 pm

≫ Next: The Making of the Enemy

≪ Previous: Travel to Russia With CCI in Autumn

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Dear Friends, I am leaving on May 27th for Russia, taking a Sister Cities International group of officers and volunteers. Our program will be packed and there will be little time to scan or respond to emails. If you are inquiring about CCI’s August 30 – September 15 trip to ten regions of Russia, please contact Sylvia Demarest at smdranchtexas@sbcglobal.net. […]

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The Making of the Enemy

June 12, 2018, 1:52 pm

≫ Next: Citizen Diplomacy: A Critical Need in 2019

≪ Previous: Away from Office – Taking Sister Cities International Group to Russia

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Dear CCI Friends, It is 4 am. I awakened this morning from jet lag in a gated community of private homes on the West Coast. Swirling around in my mind was, “The Making of the Enemy,” a phrase of past decades. It has never seemed more relevant to me than now. I had watched the gradual making of “Russia as […]

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Citizen Diplomacy: A Critical Need in 2019

July 19, 2018, 6:04 pm

≫ Next: Come to Russia with CCI via “Foto/Diaries”!

≪ Previous: The Making of the Enemy

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Dear CCI Friends, Please excuse my absence in reporting during these days surrounding the Trump-Putin Summit.  It was critical to take “time out” to re-energize. In order to continue with my increasingly unmanageable workload, I’ve hired CCI’s first staff person since 2009. Maddelyn Bryan, a recent graduate from the University of San Francisco joined CCI […]

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Come to Russia with CCI via “Foto/Diaries”!

August 3, 2018, 9:53 am

≫ Next: “Gorky Park, Golden Park” Responses

≪ Previous: Citizen Diplomacy: A Critical Need in 2019

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Dear Friends, We are a month away from CCI’s next citizen-diplomacy “signature” trip to Russia. It departs August 30. We believe in more contact, not less … especially when both sides have weapons of mass destruction aimed at each other. While official levels are having very little interaction, it behooves us as citizens to have as much […]

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“Gorky Park, Golden Park” Responses

August 27, 2018, 12:42 pm

≫ Next: New CCI Strategies to Deal with Critical Year Ahead

≪ Previous: Come to Russia with CCI via “Foto/Diaries”!

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Dear CCI Friends! Regarding my printing of the “Gorky Park/Golden Gate Park” article I sent out by Harvard Professor Matthew Bunn, many of you have really ‘raked me over the coals’ (as my Kentucky father would say)!  I have not previously had so much protest to an article as this one … my first admonishment […]

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New CCI Strategies to Deal with Critical Year Ahead

November 3, 2018, 8:05 pm

≫ Next: Experience Saratov, Russia, through the eyes of three Americans!

≪ Previous: “Gorky Park, Golden Park” Responses

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Dear Friends of CCI, This is a belated catch-up note.  I’m glad to be back in touch after a hiatus to recover from the last trip, coalesce our travelers’ experiences, and to edit numerous videos. Whoooo! CCI has been a “dead run” for the entire year of 2018! Groups of Americans traveling across Russia to […]

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Experience Saratov, Russia, through the eyes of three Americans!

November 7, 2018, 6:15 pm

≫ Next: NOVOSIBIRSK: Americans Look into Siberia’s Capital City

≪ Previous: New CCI Strategies to Deal with Critical Year Ahead

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Dear CCI Friends, We have lots of September trip information to share with you –– YouTubes of experts, regional city experiences written by our travelers, and numbers of YouTubes about life within Russia today. I’d hoped to start our September “tell all” with President Gorbachev’s YouTube!  However, there’s a technical glitch that needs to be […]

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NOVOSIBIRSK: Americans Look into Siberia’s Capital City

November 16, 2018, 7:15 pm

≫ Next: (Video) GORBACHEV Speaks Out to CCI Citizen Diplomats in September

≪ Previous: Experience Saratov, Russia, through the eyes of three Americans!

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At the turn of the 20th century, Novosibirsk, the third largest city in Russia, burst into being like a meteor.  It was little more than a large village in 1897.  The original town was to be near the projected new Trans-Siberian rail hub with an additional connection to the north-south Turkestan-Siberia Railway. Novosibirsk became one of the […]

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(Video) GORBACHEV Speaks Out to CCI Citizen Diplomats in September

November 19, 2018, 9:07 am

≫ Next: (Video) Sharing the Holiday Spirit with You! … via CCI’s Upbeat YouTubes!

≪ Previous: NOVOSIBIRSK: Americans Look into Siberia’s Capital City

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Dear CCI Friends, We are honored to have had a two-hour meeting with President Mikhail Gorbachev on September 4, 2018.  This event was prior to our delegation of U.S. ‘citizen diplomats’ traveling across Russia to investigate how fifteen far-out cities in ten regions are faring. Gorbachev’s decades-long private interpreter, Pavel Palazhchenko, was present to assure […]

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(Video) Sharing the Holiday Spirit with You! … via CCI’s Upbeat YouTubes!

December 3, 2018, 7:39 am

≫ Next: Crimea-Kerch Bridge Question!

≪ Previous: (Video) GORBACHEV Speaks Out to CCI Citizen Diplomats in September

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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 […]

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Crimea-Kerch Bridge Question!

December 4, 2018, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Re-addressing the Azov Debacle!

≪ Previous: (Video) Sharing the Holiday Spirit with You! … via CCI’s Upbeat YouTubes!

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CCI Friends, Pat Buchanan poses a question below that we hope Donald Trump and his advisors will take seriously. Crimea was taken back into Russia with a citizen-demand of 93% of her voters… thus making the Sea of Azov a Russian lake. With vast technology supporting the whole process, above and below the bridge, it […]

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Re-addressing the Azov Debacle!

December 5, 2018, 12:32 pm

≫ Next: (Video) A Glimpse Inside Russian Orthodoxy Today

≪ Previous: Crimea-Kerch Bridge Question!

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Dear CCI Readers, Never have I had more supporters and detractors than with yesterday’s post regarding the Azov debacle! Worse still, I quoted Patrick Buchanan (whose humorous pieces I usually enjoy) regarding the Azov waters being like a “Russian lake.” It sounded reasonable at a quick glance… but later, looking at a larger map of […]

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