It’s no doubt, that Russian-German relations are experiencing hard times now. Ukrainian crisis was like a test for the German society, which involved German politicians and diplomats and divided it in two opposite camps. One of the camps consists of those, who do not want to continue a constructive dialogue with Russia, who consider the strategic partnership agreement between Russia and the EU, which took so many years to prepare, to have passed into oblivion, who aim for returning German and Russians to the times of their Battle on the Ice on Chudskoye Lake and who consider Russia to be a rival, not a partner anymore.
The second camp gathered people, who fight for continuing good neighbour relations between Russia and Germany, having more than a thousand year-long history, who still operate Helsinki criteria and principles of our mutual home – Europe and who understand the need to build a single space with Russia from Lisbon to Vladivostok.
The retorsion in the Russian society against Germany, which is a reaction to a too long-running anti-Russian rhetoric of the German media, is also often inadequate. There are plenty of Russians, who think we can do easily without Germany, filling the retrogression in our bilateral relations by forcing contacts with the countries of BRICS, SCO and other unions. Well, it is a shortfall, shallow policy! Russian foreign policy as a Eurasian state, should build up on good neighbourhood relations principles with European states, where Germany takes an absolute geopolitical and economic leadership, and also with Asian countries and other continents.
Observers note, that at the same time, Russia-German relations are gradually harmonizing and the ways to return to the best times have now outlined; politicians of the top level and public organisations through participation in public diplomacy aspire to this. Humanitarian, cultural and youth exchange between Russia and Germany is returning to its previous level. Next after Russia – Germany cross-years of languages and literature, we saw the beginning of the long-awaited year of Russia-German youth exchange year 2016-2017, which opened on June 9 at the Moscow hotel complex “Kosmos”.
It is pleasing, that many events of the Exchange Year will be started with the initiative of the leaders of the two countries – President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel under the auspices of ministers of foreign affairs of Russia and Germany. Based on the top level of this long-term project, young people of Russia and Germany hope it will lead to holding massive, substantial events, which can return Russian-German youth exchange to the previous level and to overcome it.
The latter is not going to be easy, if we compare the current level of state support, diversification and scale of bilateral youth contacts to those of the Soviet period, when youth exchange was under state control of the USSR Youth Organisations Committee, which tried to make regular the contacts between youth organisations of Russia, other Soviet Republics, cities and regions of the DDR. Long-term agreements with Young Socialists, Democrats, Christians, Greens, German Socialist and Labour Youth, Pathfinders and Falcons had thematic variety and covered almost all the federal states of the DDR. Not many people expressed their regrets about the lost levels of bilateral contacts at the opening of the Russia-German youth exchange year, but among them was state secretary (deputy minister) of the ministry of family affairs, youth, senior citizens and sports of Germany Doctor Ralf Kleindiek.
According to the information of the German side, 17 thousand young people are currently involved into the Russian-German youth contacts, over 600 different events were held, which is a large amount, but the number of participants could be even bigger – take for instance the fact that total amount of people, living in Russia and united Germany is almost 228 million people.
The ancient Greeks used to say “panta rhei”. The USSR Youth Organisations Committee was replaced by the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs “Rosmolodezh”. Employees of this state structure are professional and enthusiastic; they aspire to developing Russian-German youth exchange to a new level and new quality.
Who are the direct organizers of the Russia-German youth exchange year? The organizers of the year are “German-Russia Youth Exchange” Foundation in Germany and Russian National Coordinating Bureau of Youth Exchange with the Federal Republic of Germany in Moscow, whose functions perform the “International Youth Center” – a subordinate organization of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs starting from 2012.
The program of the Russia-German youth exchange year is varied and has numerous events, information about the main ones is already available at the web-site. Governmental and non-governmental organisations are among the organisers of the year: Federal Association of German Youth, National Council of Children and Youth Associations of Russia, Russkiy Mir Foundation, which is planning to organize two conferences in Moscow and Berlin on the issue of Russian-German youth cooperation together with the Association of Russian-Speaking Organisations of Germany, Embassy of Russia in Germany, International Union of German Culture and “Rosmolodezh” Agency.
