New Year Trees From Sister-Cities exhibition was opened in Perm
Photo by Yekaterina Khokhryakova The opening ceremony for the exhibition displaying the New Year trees from the cities twinned to Perm was held in the Perm Youth Center (Ul.Sibiskaya, 29). He display shows the New Year decorations from France, Germany, the USA, Italy and China.
The New Year Trees are decorated with items hand-made by kids and schoolchildren from the cities all over the world twinned to Perm – Amnéville-le-Therme in France, Duisburg in Germany, Oxford in the UK, Louisville in the US, Agrigento in Italy and Qingdao in China. So one can see tiny wooden characters from “Alice in Wonderland”, gifts from the world famous Kentucky Darby Museum, traditional Chinese paper cutting figures (this handicraft, called Jianzhi, is on the UNESCO world heritage list)
- To show the other people’s culture is not our only and ultimate aim. We have put up a mail box at each of the New Year tree so that the children in Perm can send their hand-made postcards or pictures to their counterparts in a twinned city.” - says Natalya Roslyakova, Perm Youth Centre Director
The visitors can not only enjoy watching the decorations but also learn about the history, culture and sights of the twinned cities, as well as national traditions for Christmas and the New Year. In addition , the Center organizes the interactive programmes for the schoolchildren titled “ Friendship starts with a New Year tree”. The exhibition will be open until the end of January 2020.
- We believe that warm-hearted contacts between the people help maintain relations between the countries because their residents share common values,” noted Tatyana Grigorieva, head of International and Inter-municipal Links at Perm City Administration.
The New Year trees exposition has been created as part of larger international project called “ Friendship starts with a New Year tree”, run by the Perm Youth Center , the winner of the XXI City Social projects Competition “The city is us”. The project is aimed at developing international friendship links between the children and youth of Perm and its twinned cities.
Earlier the Perm children made postcards telling stories of their hometown, the Russian traditions on the New Year and Christmas, and containing season‘s greetings for their counterparts. Over a hundred postcards are on their way to children’s organisations in partner cities.
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The project did not start by chance – a couple of years before a similar event was organized whereby the hand-made decorations by Perm children travelled to Louisville and Duisburg, where decorating Christmas trees with items provided by sister-cities partners has become a tradition. The friendship link has been long established between the Youth center and their counterparts in the Chinese Qingdao – the pictures by young Perm artists were part of two arts exhibitions in China in 2019.
The organisers are convinced the project “ Friendship starts with a New Year tree” will further enhance development of close links between the youth organisations in Perm and its twinned cities and will promote exchange of experience in sport, science and culture.