Read this post in Russian, translated by Google. Читать этот пост на русском языке, перевод Google.
For much of my life, Siberia was this cold, distant land where the Soviet Union sent its dissidents to work in gulags. And I presume Russians, if they thought of Iowa at all, thought of our state as a flat place where we grow lots of corn (Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited the Roswell Garst farm in Coon Rapids, Iowa, in 1959.)
While both stereotypes are based in truth (Iowa isn’t really flat, but it is compared to Siberia’s mountains), I know from years living in and around Iowa that the stereotype is shallow and incomplete. I’m sure my stereotype of Siberia is similarly shallow and incomplete. I’m looking forward to learning more about Siberia on a trip that starts Sunday.
In September, I went to the University of Kentucky for an ethics seminar that included some visiting journalists from the Press Development Institute-Siberia. I spent an interesting afternoon and evening with the group, speaking through an interpreter, though at least a couple of them were fluent in English.
When we parted, Victor Yukechev, director of the institute, said, “Next time, Siberia.” I smiled and said I would love to visit Siberia. I have said similar things to many visiting foreign journalists, but I still haven’t visited Uganda, Croatia, Colombia, South Africa or Cambodia. I didn’t expect that I would be visiting Siberia. But Victor did.
In early October, I received an email with an invitation from Victor to lead workshops next Wednesday and Thursday in Barnaul, Siberia, 12 time zones away. On Friday, Dec. 4, I will be a guest speaker at a conference celebrating the 20th anniversary of the independent press in Siberia.
Even in Siberia, journalists are trying to make the transition from a print past to a digital future and hoping to develop a healthy business model along the way. I will be explaining my Complete Community Connection vision for such a business model.
As time and wireless connections allow, I will blog during and after the trip. My wife, Mimi, will be blogging as well, at Rubyeyedfox. Of course, I will see only one city in a region that’s 90 times the area of Iowa (and 12 times the population). Barnaul is about the population of Omaha, relatively near the borders of Mongolia, Kazakhstan and China. The temperature there is 27 degrees Fahrenheit as I write this, not a bad day for an Iowa winter, just 16 degrees colder than Cedar Rapids. Last week, Barnaul temperatures dropped below zero, so we will be dressing warmly.
We’ll fly to Barnaul by way of Chicago, Amsterdam and Moscow. After five days in Barnaul, we will spend two days each in St. Petersburg and Moscow before returning home Dec. 11.
Along the way, I’ll add some depth to my caricature view of Siberia. And I hope to help my Siberian friends learn more about Iowa.
