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.