BIRTH OF ROTARY IN RUSSIA as told by the St Petersburg Rotary Club
Rotary in Russia is about 9 years old. Still during this comparatively short time 24 clubs have been established west of the Ural mountains: in Moscow, St.Petersburg, Lomonosov, Dubna, Vyatka, Nizhny Novgorod (Kstovo), Saratov, Naryan-Mar, Murmansk, Vladimir, Tolyatti, Tver. During these years they have accommplishen a number of humanitarian projects, mainly medical, which helped to provide medicines and equipment to many hospitals and polyclinics. Hundreds of school-students, students, post-graduates and young specialists have upgraded their qualifications in the countries of Europe and America. Multiple businesses and personal contacts with Rotarians from different countries have allowed the strengthening of mutual understanding among peoples, and they have performed other tasks which helped our country to overcome many crisis situations in food, medical care and education.
New provisional Rotary Clubs are in the process of organization in Ekaterinburg, Vyborg, Kaliningrad and Sochi.
The activities of the clubs in Russia west of the Urals and in Belorussia are coordinated by the Presidential Extension Administrator, who is appointed by Rotary International. For the next two years this is going to be Jorma Lampen, a member of the Helsinki North Rotary Club, and a PastDistrict Governor of D1420
There are 25 clubs in Russia on the eastem side of the Urals today (in Chita, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, Magadan region, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Vladivostok, Yakutsk, Yelezov),and at least 20 more are planned to be established by or in the year 2000 They are part of the Rotary District 5010 whose Governor is Peter Ernst.
BIRTH OF ROTARY IN RUSSIA
In year 1988 three Rotarians from Sweden asked Mr.Pankin, USSR ambassador to Sweden for an audience so that they could speak about the Rotary movement. During their conversation they told the ambassador in detail of Rotary tasks and targets, ideology and philosophy. Mr.Pankin supported the idea of a possibility to create Rotary clubs in the USSR.
But the problem was that in our country there did not exist any non-government organisation that worked on the same Rotary principles, so RI did not make any decisions in this regard. In spite of the fact that foreign Rotarians participated in the non-government programs and exchanges with USSR, there was no information about Rotary in the USSR, to say nothing about an idea to establish such clubs in the country.
Some time later the first Secretary of the embassy, Mr.Losin, prepared an in-depth information sheet about the Rotary movement and forwarded it to the Union of Soviet Friendship Societies and the "USSR - Sweden" society. Several members of the Board of the society liked the idea of establishing a club with such principles. In the fall of 1988 through the invitation of the "USSR-Sweden" society, two Swedes came to Moscow. Rotarians Axel Murray of Stockholm (now honoured member of Moscow Rotary club), and Vikar Saefvestad of Jonkoeping.
The Russian hosts were very
serious about the visit, and the Rotarians, who had had no
authority to discuss the creation of Rotary in the USSR, instead
were to inform the Soviet people about the movement, and had been
given broad opportunities to do so. There were interviews with
"Izvestia", the "Time" show on central TV,
and "Moskovskie Novosti" newspaper and radio. In Moscow
they had met such dignitaries as: academician Petrakov, Tatyana
Zaslavskaya, Alexander Shokhin (not a prominent figure on the
Russia's political scene at that time), Vladimir Gusinski (not a
well-known businessmen then). The Swedish Rotarians also
visited Tallinn (Capital of Estonia), where till 1940 a Rotary
had existed at the invitation of the Estonian Friendship
Society.
There they also found the meeting place of the then former Tallinn Rotary club. - It turned out to be the city Palace of Pioneers. Unfortunately they did not find a single living pre-war Rotarian. Things did not go any further than information. In the spring of 1989 a return visit took place. The delegation had consisted of people convinced of the necessity of creating such clubs in our country, and those who wanted to learn more about the club's everyday work, traditions and laws.
After visits to many Rptary clubs, members of the delegation (Alexander Makartsia, Alexander Tarnavski, Sergey Yushin and Estonian Tynu Karu) came home with a desire to prepare ground for the foundation of new clubs in Moscow and Tallinn. In 1989 contacts of Rotary International with USSR had become more active, but no decision to start a club in the country was made. Only in the spring of 1990, after a visit of Mr.Rolf Kljarich, RI ex-president, to Moscow, (and his meeting with the first deputy minister of Foreign Affairs Mr.Petrovski, who had guaranteed the safety of future Rotarians), was the first Rotary club in Moscow created. RI decided that Finnish district 142 world supervise creation of the club in Moscow.
On June 5th, 1990 in the presence of numerous guests from abroad and RI headquarters, RI ex-president Mr.Rolf Kljarich among them, the Moscow club received its Charter. Among the first members of the club were such prominent people as: Prof.Mozolin (President), Prof. Y.Belenkov, cardiologist, Y.Nagibin, writer, and other representatives of Moscow business, academic and cultural world. For almost two years Mr. Yuri Luzhkov, Mayor of Moscow, was an active member of the club, and today he is the club's honorary member.
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