The Library of Congress is organizing and overseeing a $10-million government program that will bring some 2,000 local and national officials from Russia to the United States to show them how democracy and civil society work. Librarian of Congress James Billington and U.S. Ambassador to Russia James Collins made the announcement July 19 at a news conference in Moscow.
The first 200 Russian participants began arriving July 27, and similar-sized groups will continue to come almost weekly through the end of September. The visitors will spend about 10 days in an American community, usually living with an American family, and observing government, businesses, and nonprofit organizations.
"Bringing large number of Russians to the United States avoids the patronizing syndrome of sending Americans to Russia to tell the Russians how to run their lives," said Billington, who proposed the plan 13 months ago. Congress included funding for the program in an emergency appropriations bill passed in May primarily to pay for the air war in Yugoslavia.
Posted August 2, 1999.