Russian-born Long Beach resident Anya Liddiard is on a mission to bridge the relationship between the U.S. and Russia—at least on a local level through the Long Beach-Sochi sister cities committee she helped restart this year.
Following almost two years of inactivity, the committee is officially active again, it was announced this week. Liddiard has been working behind the scenes to revive the Long Beach-Sochi Sister Cities Committee with a personal goal of building a strong Russian community in Long Beach, she said.
“It wasn’t something I planned, but gradually happened as a result of my passion to share the Russian language and culture with my daughter,” said Liddiard who is now chair of the committee.
Liddiard said she looked into the sister-cities program after she encountered a friendship tree marking the Long Beach-Sochi relationship at Recreation Park in East Long Beach in 2015.
She was looking for a place to hold children’s classes on Russian language and culture, but soon found she could not do it alone and that it should be experienced within a community.
“Especially in light of the current state of US-Russia relations, I feel a strong desire and personal responsibility to focus on our human connections,” Liddiard said. “There is so much more that both cities can learn from each other and losing it will be tragic.”
The Long Beach-Sochi sister cities committee was formed in 1989. It is one of eight sister cities nonprofit programs in Long Beach—the first connection created in 1963 with the city of Yokkaichi Japan, seven years after then-President Dwight Eisenhower established the International Sister Cities program as a way for citizens worldwide to learn more about each other.
The program is meant to connect residents of both cities to share cultural, educational and economic information, said Sister Cities of Long Beach Inc. President Phyllis Venable.
Venable said Long Beach usually tries to connect with cities that share similarities, like ports and universities.
“It’s a people-to-people program, less about government-to-government,” Venable said. “The success depends on people.”
However, in order to be officially recognized, both mayors must sign an agreement.
While national relations between any two cities’ governments may not affect the relationship of the municipalities, historical controversies may have an effect as in the recent case between the Japanese city of Osaka and San Francisco, reported this week.
A year-old monument depicting the “comfort women” who were detained and raped by Japanese soldiers before and during WWII led to the Osaka mayor to officially sever its sister-city partnership, according to the New York Times.
Then there’s the fact that while Long Beach is seen as LGBTQ friendly, that is not the case in Sochi—or Russia, which passed an anti-gay propaganda law a year before the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Liddiard has acknowledged that post-USSR Russia is still working to overcome some of its old mentality and stereotypes, but sees this program as an opportunity to seed new conversations between both cities.
“Our vision is to create an open environment to have conversations that propel our two cities to learn more about each other —without prejudice and judgement —and to help both of our cities grow in a positive direction,” Liddiard said.
https://lbpost.com/lgbtq/while-lgbtq-tolerance-thrives-in-long-beach-its-sister-city-sochi-has-far-to-go/
Though Venable isn’t sure if national relations between the U.S. and Russia—including allegations of Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election—had to do with a deteriorating Long Beach-Sochi relationship, she did note that there was a change in leadership in the Russian city and communication was difficult to establish.
However, Venable is hopeful with this new iteration of members and potential connections Liddiard, can establish. While Liddiard was born in Volgograd, she spent summers in Sochi, which is located on the northeastern coast of the Black Sea.
“This is a group that can make inroads to fix,” Venable said.
Liddiard is currently working on corresponding with her Sochi counterparts and the first sister-city program in Long Beach is scheduled to take place in December.
There is still space available for those interested in becoming members of any of the city’s sister-city committees, Venable said. There is no requirement to join, however there are membership fees.
The following international cities have an established partnership with Long Beach: Bacolod, Philippines; Mombasa, Kenya; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Qingdao, China; Playas de Rosarito, Mexico; Venice, Italy; Yokkaichi, Japan; and now Sochi, Russia. For more information on the program click here.