The German-Russian Year of Youth Exchange
With the German-Russian Year of Youth Exchange, the foreign ministers of both countries want to rebuild relations.
Dancing and talking, hiking and eating together and even cutting open a car: the joint exercises with the Agency for Technical Relief are only one of many examples in a new short film that shows the German-Russian youth exchange. The young people also explain here why this exchange is important to them. “You understand how the people really are”, says one young Russian girl. “It’s different from anything else I’ve ever seen”, says a girl from Germany emphatically.
Dialogue between societies
To explore new paths together and thereby to reach a better understanding of the other: these are the concerns that the foreign ministers of Germany and Russia, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Sergej Lavrov, address in their agreement on the German-Russian Year of Youth Exchange 2016/2017. There it reads: “We cherish the common desire that young people from our two countries increasingly find direct contact with each other and thereby strengthen the dialogue and understanding between our societies. Especially in politically difficult times it is important to give a clear signal of cooperation.” The Exchange Year will be officially inaugurated on 9 June 2016 in Moscow with the tenth anniversary of the Foundation for German-Russian Exchange and its partner organization, the Russian National Coordination Bureau for Youth Exchanges with the Federal republic of Germany. It pursues a variety of formats with which German-Russian contacts have long been cultivated. For example, from 30 June to 3 July 2016, the German-Russian Youth Forum will take place in Munich for the fourteenth time. And on November 2016 the 12th German-Russian Youth Parliament convenes in Berlin; in 2015 the young people gathered in Moscow.
The chances are good that the German-Russian Youth Exchange will gain new attention. “The agreement of the foreign ministers is an important sign of cooperation in a difficult time”, emphasizes Thomas Hoffmann, Managing Director of the Foundation for German-Russian Youth Exchange. “With this joint political initiative, we want to achieve the goal that more young people from both countries can again meet each other.”
Start of the German-Russian Year of Youth Exchange 2016/2017, 9 June in Moscow
