Panel I: American and Russian Experience in Organizing Cultural Exchanges
Chair: Blair A. Ruble, Director, Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center
Discussant: Paul Smith, consultant, Washington, DC and former U.S. Consul General, St. Petersburg
Aleksandr Kobak, Director, Likhachev Foundation, St. Petersburg
Maura Shelden, Public Affairs Officer, Open World Program, Washington, DC
Richard Lanier, Member of the Board, Trust for Mutual Understanding

Panel II: First U.S. Alumni of the "Residencies in Russia" Program in the Field of Arts and Culture Share Their Experiences
Chair: Elena Vitenberg, Program Coordinator, Likhachev Foundation, St. Petersburg
Discussant: John Brown, Research Associate, School of Continuing Studies, Georgetown University, and former Cultural Affairs Officer, U.S. Embassy, Moscow
Ann Clea Kjellberg, Director and Treasurer, Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fellowship Fund
Milena Kalinovska, Director of Public Programs, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Judith Dutcher, President and Director, The Museum of Russian Art, Minneapolis
Carol Rocamora, playwright, author, and Adjunct Professor, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University
Ilya Prizel, UCIS Research Professor of East European Studies, Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Pittsburgh

On November 19, 2008, the Kennan Institute, in cosponsorship with the Likhachev Foundation (Moscow) and the Open World Program (Washington, D.C.), hosted a seminar to assess the role of cultural exchange in improving U.S.-Russian understanding.

The first panel of the seminar brought together the directors and facilitators of some of the leading institutions for U.S.-Russian exchange to discuss their past and present experiences. Paul Smith, consultant, Washington, DC and former U.S. Consul General, St. Petersburg, served as the discussant. He opened the discussion with some comments on the overall context of U.S.-Russian cultural exchanges. In doing so, he identified the need for greater focus on continued communication and follow-up after exchange programs conclude. Smith called attention to the growing amount of individual, unstructured contact among exchange participants through Internet networking tools such as "Facebook" and "v kontakte," and encouraged exchange organizations to pay more attention to these relationships and to harness them more effectively.

Richard Lanier, Member of the Board, Trust for Mutual Understanding, Alexander Kobak, Director, Likhachev Foundation, St. Petersburg, and Maura Shelden, Public Affairs Officer, Open World Program spoke about the specifics of their programs. Lanier explained the Trust's goal of enabling creative people in the arts and environmental sciences to get together and work on projects of common interest. He described how the character of projects funded by the Trust has shifted from having been less substantive and more tourist-based in the 1980s to now being more innovative and original. He interpreted the change as an indication that the two countries have moved beyond the basic need of simply becoming more familiar with one another. It is important to remember, he contended, that the old model of exchange successfully fulfilled its function; it brought thousands of Russians and Americans together and provided information to each group about everyday life that was previously unavailable. "Today, however, the purpose of exchange should no longer be to merely inform one another – that can be done through the Internet." Instead, he stressed, exchange today should focus on enabling mutually beneficial intellectual collaboration.

A program that does exactly that is the Likhachev Foundations's Creative Exchange Fellowship program. Kobak noted that it was the first of its kind to be fully Russian-funded. The fellowships enable U.S. citizens to travel to Russia to work on projects in Russian history and culture. The concept behind this support, Kobak explained, is that the best way to promote Russian culture to America is through Americans themselves. Shelden remarked that, among U.S.-organized exchanges with Russia, unique to the Open World Program is the practice of home-stays. Home-stays, she explained, maximize the "multiplier effect" of the program; not only are participants engaged in professional programming, but they also get a first-hand look at American families and life beyond work. This experience helps participants connect to individual Americans, not just the concept of America, Shelden said.

Blair A. Ruble, Director, Kennan Institute and Comparative Urban Studies Project, Woodrow Wilson Center, chaired the panel, and drew the session to a close by considering how today's cultural exchanges differ from those of the Soviet period. He observed that U.S.-Soviet exchanges were always large-scale, government-funded productions, administered in some cases by private organizations but always through international agreements. "It was a relationship that paralleled the relationship between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.," he stated. Both sides always had a multiplicity of objectives, some of which had nothing to do with the cultural enterprise at hand. What panelists said about current U.S.-Russian cultural exchanges demonstrates that such relations today are much more normal. Their observations create a striking contrast when compared to the general conception of the relationship that many, in both Russia and the U.S., still hold. In August 2008, for example, the outbreak of conflict between Georgia and Russia caused U.S. media, politicians, and others to call for the U.S. to cut off relations with Russia. "This might be possible when dealing with large-scale, government programs, for which the spigot can be turned off quickly, but we are dealing with a world in which people communicate with one another by Facebook," noted Ruble. The political discussion in both countries in August was not reflective of the reality on the ground.

During the second half of the seminar, the inaugural participants of the Likhachev Foundation's Creative Exchange Fellowship program shared their experiences. The panel was chaired by Elena Vitenberg, Program Coordinator, Likhachev Foundation, and included Ann Clea Kjellberg, Director and Treasurer, Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fellowship Fund; Milena Kalinovska, Director of Public Programs, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Judith Dutcher, President and Director, The Museum of Russian Art, Minneapolis; Carol Rocamora, playwright, author, and Adjunct Professor, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University; and Ilya Prizel, UCIS Research Professor of East European Studies, Center for Russian and East European Studies, University of Pittsburgh. John Brown, Research Associate, School of Continuing Studies, Georgetown University, and former Cultural Affairs Officer, U.S. Embassy, Moscow, served as the discussant. To conclude the event, he identified two vital elements that ran throughout each participant's account, and attributed the effectiveness of the program to them: the salience of the human presence, and the importance of detail, variety, and nuance in understanding.

Written by Sarah Dixon Klump