Russia and America: 200 years together and counting...
I recently got a call from one of my university classmates that I haven’t talked to for many years. I vaguely recalled that Andrei was still living and working in Yekaterinburg, where we both went to school. I also remembered that he used to be a member of the famous Urals State University choir.
- My best wishes to you on this anniversary, Andrei began.
- What anniversary? I responded with surprise.
- It’s the 200th anniversary of official diplomatic relations between the United States and Russia. We had a wonderful concert in our city to celebrate the event. The four best choirs of Yekaterinburg did a marvelous program! You would never guess who was the brightest music star on stage… It was the Consul General of the U.S. in Yekaterinburg John Stepanchuk. He performed American gospel music as a professional singer. The audience was really impressed.
I told Andrei that I also went to a performance commemorating the bicentennial of U.S.-Russian relations not that long ago. The event took place in a relatively small town of Ada, Oklahoma. Just like in Yekaterinburg, the people applauded the Consul General of the Russian Consulate in Houston Nikolai Sofinskiy. Unlike his American colleague, however, the Russian diplomat did not sing songs; he presented awards to school and university students who won in the U.S.-Russia relations essay contest. Legendary Russian poet Yevgeny Evtushenko entertained the public and got the strongest ovations. Evtushenko is a living classic of Russian literature, no less popular and renowned in America than in Russia.
In 2007, a number of such concerts and celebrations, whether big or small, took place in both Russia and the U.S.
Two centuries ago, in the year 1807, Tsar Alexander I and President Thomas Jefferson established diplomatic ties between the United States and Russia. The first American ambassador to Russia John Quincy Adams later became the sixth President of the U.S.
Throughout the decades, the relationship of Russia and America took different turns: there were ups and downs, quick ascents and rapid falls. Today, it is absolutely clear that the two countries are forever destined to be partners and not mutual enemies.
The statistics of trade and economic cooperation between Russia and America speak for themselves. As Ambassador Burns noted during an address at the Russian Academy of Sciences in early November, American investment in Russia was USD 67 billion in 2007.
“Our countries are strategic partners in a number of areas,” Ambassador Burns concluded. A commitment to partnership is truly the most important result of the past 200 years.