Kotlas - Waterville Area
Sister City Connection
P.O. Box 1747
Waterville, ME 04903-1747
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About the Kotlas Connection

The Kotlas – Waterville Area Sister City Connection strives to develop friendship and understanding between the peoples of Greater Waterville and of Kotlas, a city of 82,000 people in northwestern Russia. To that end, the Kotlas Connection sponsors educational and cultural programs in the Waterville area to raise awareness of Russia and Kotlas. It also sponsors exchanges of people and ideas between Greater Waterville and Kotlas.

The first meeting between Watervillians and Kotlassians occurred in April 1989, when three Waterville area residents journeyed to Kotlas. This meeting was the culmination of 5½ years of trying to establish a sister city relationship with Kotlas. In June of 1990, the mayor of Kotlas led a four-person delegation to Waterville. During that visit, he signed a proclamation with Waterville's mayor declaring Kotlas and Waterville sister cities. The two mayors also planted a cluster of birch trees, common in both Maine and Northern Russia, by the Waterville end of the Two Cent Bridge, comemmorating the new sister city partnership. In the Spring of 2004, the Kotlas Connection obtained a grant from the Library of Congress to enable that Kotlas mayor's successor and two other prominent Kotlassians to visit Waterville.

Since 1990, over 800 children and adults have been matched with pen pals in Kotlas and nearly 60 Waterville area residents have actually visited our sister city, including an eleven member delegation in the Summer of 2005. The Kotlas Connection and its predecessor, the Waterville Area Kotlas Committee, have sent cargo containers of humanitarian aid to Kotlas on two occasions, have sponsored extended visits by five high school students and one teacher from Kotlas, arranged concerts of Russian music, sponsored a visit by two Kotlas painters and held exhibitions of their works and those of other Kotlas artists, organized a visit by four Kotlas doctors and a nurse, and, every spring since 1993, organized a day of workshops about Russia and Russian culture for middle school students from Central Maine and beyond.

In the fall of 1998, the Kotlas Connection embarked on one of its most ambitious projects ever — a yearlong student exchange on the theme of rivers. That September, a group of Waterville area high school students through the regional gifted and talented program began studying the ecology of the Kennebec River, while in Kotlas, a similar group examined that city's river, the Northern Dvina. The Russians students came to Waterville in February 1999 to share their findings, and the American students went to Kotlas the following June, bringing the project to a close.

The Kotlas Connection is governed by an executive committee elected by the organization's members at its annual meeting each fall. We rely on members and volunteers for donations of time and money. To join the Kotlas Connection, please fill out the membership form and send it and your dues by postal mail to the Kotlas Connection. For more information about the Kotlas Connection, read a history of our early days, peruse a thematic timeline of all our projects and exchanges, browse our newsletter archives, and meet our Kotlas counterparts. If you have questions about the Kotlas Connection or its programs, you may write to us for more information.

Last revised: 8/18/07

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