Serendipity: Russian Consulting and Development, Ltd.

With a team of Russian and American volunteers, Ronald Pope, a professor of political science at Illinois State University (ISU) in Bloomington-Normal, constructed a ranch-style American home in the center of Vladimir during the summer of 1992. [Brief History] In July 1993, on the first anniversary of the inauguration of Amerikanskii Dom, a local newspaper, Molva, paid tribute to the project in an editorial titled, "The American Home Has Stood for a Year and Not Collapsed." Molva called special attention to the Serendipity attitude:

"to complete in Russia small but concrete projects. The professor's motto:
It isn't necessary to wait until everything here is in order�we need to work now."

Today, Serendipity operates an American English Program with more than 250 students per term, the program's capacity�and the waiting list currently exceeds 100. Serendipity's students range from six year-olds to businessmen and doctors. The program, conducted at the American Home in Vladimir, uses full-time American instructors recruited from around the US, with new teachers coming each August. [For a current listing of English teaching positions, click here.] They live with Russian families who are paid room and board by Serendipity. Besides their classes, the teachers do outreach work with local Russian English teachers and participate in the activities of the English Speakers Club which meets Saturday mornings at the American Home. The American Home also serves as the legal address, meeting place, and reception hall for the Vladimir Association for Partner Ties, which links Vladimir and Bloomington-Normal in Illinois. To date, more than 200 Vladimirites have visited Bloomington-Normal, and Vladimir's hospitals have received $2 million of medical supplies and equipment from American partners. Student exchanges are also occurring. [update]

Police training programs involving members of the ISU Police and Criminal Justice Departments and militia (police) officers from Vladimir were among the first exchanges that Serendipity carried out at its inception in 1990. Twenty-five American law enforcement specialists in 1993 and 1994 made "Law and Justice" trips to Vladimir. Four officers from Vladimir's Special Militia School have since completed 14 weeks of training and observation in police procedures at the University of Illinois Police Training Institute, followed by "hands-on" experience with the police departments of Bloomington, Normal, Rockford and Chicago. In May 1996, Serendipity arranged a trip to Russia (primarily to Vladimir) for eleven American criminal justice students. [update]

Business training is another area in which Serendipity is involved. It has brought specialists from the U.S. to give short workshops in marketing and management. ISU students working together with Russian peers have made an inventory of the region's retail outlets, surveying customers, store owners and others. This data was later used in retail trade workshops offered by Serendipity. In 1996, Serendipity arranged and help fund a 12 member business and government delegation from the Vladimir area. The delegation attended the tenth anniversary celebration of the Vladimir/Canterbury Sister City Association of Bloomington-Normal in Illinois.

In Spring, 1999, Serendipity will begin offering intensive Russian language classes in Vladimir. The classes will involve intensive small group lessons (no more than six students), both at the American Home and at other "on site" locations in and around the city. Students will receive room and board with a Russian host family during their stay. For more information on this exciting educational opportunity, click here.

Recent Serendipity Activities

Not-for-Profit:

• Assisted a group of young people from Vladimir in pursuing a Junior Achievement program with our local Girl Scouts. (By all accounts, their August '96 visit was a major success, and it fostered ongoing contacts, including an August '97 trip to Vladimir by Centrillio Council staff member Kay Isenburg and two others; in addition, three participants in that program are now studying in our community.)
• Arranged a very successful visit to Vladimir in August '96 by an Illinois State University Art Galleries curator Debra Risberg and photographer Mark Rabung which has resulted in a very successful June 2-August 2, 1998 exhibit at ISU.
• Arranged for two more officers from the Vladimir Juridical Institute (formerly the Special Militia School) to attend the University of Illinois Police Training Institute where they clearly had an excellent experience. They graduated June 26, 1998, after which they spent four weeks with different law enforcement organizations in Illinois. Two more officers will be attending PTI beginning the end of March 1999.
• Helped arrange for one of the first participants in this police training program, Captain Anna Korovina, to team teach a course on Russian law enforcement at Illinois State University in Spring '97. (We were able to line up a host family for her and her 8 year old daughter thanks to the success of the "Girl Scout program"...... ) By all accounts, the class went extremely well. At the end of the semester Capt. Korovina visited law enforcement training facilities in Georgia and Chicago. She has been invited back to teach for 6 months at PTI.
• Arranged for the translation into Russian of Anne Nadakavukaren, Our Global Environment (originally Man & Environment). Portions of the Russian translation are being published by ISAR (headquartered in Washington, D.C.) for use in their programs in the former Soviet Union.
• We are also assisting with student exchanges (two students from Vladimir are studying at Lincoln College and three at ISU this year with assistance from Serendipity. Last spring two high school students also studied here with our assistance. In addition, we have helped with three different school exchanges, provided assistance to the basketball program in Vladimir (for which we helped acquire some donated uniforms and basketballs), and in cooperation with our Sister City Association, we provided new clothing to the Vladimir Family Association which serves 200 families with five or more children each.
• Finally, our English Program continues to thrive with over 250 enrolled and a waiting list for the beginning level classes in particular. (We have begun offering very popular "lectures" on various aspects of North American culture, started a choir, and added special conversation classes. We also attempt to assist area English teachers, visiting their classes and inviting them to the American Home for various programs. For example, more than 20 area teachers of English visited the American Home in January '97 to view the movie Dead Poets Society, and we were able to give each school a large wall map of the world supplied by The Christian Science Monitor...)

Commercial:

• Our remodeling business is "on hold" as a result of the current economic crisis which, among other things, has for all practical purposes "shut down" the banks.
• We are working on developing our tour business. In this connection, in May '96 a group of ISU criminal justice students had an excellent trip--and they are planning a trip for May '98. A group of 20 from central Illinois visited Vladimir in July 1997 to help celebrate the 5th Anniversary of the American Home, and in January of this year we hosted a delegation from a Fortune 500 Company.... (Serendipity has prepared a Visitor's Guide to Vladimir....)
• We are working on several investment and trade projects, including the publication of an excellent collection of Vladimir area photographs, we have helped a Vladimir firm locate necessary American components for a fuel injection system they have designed, and we have done some consulting for a major America-based company which, prior to the current crisis, was interested in expanding into the former Soviet Union. We are currently competing for a contracts to supply hand painted items to two American firms.
• In April '96 we arranged a successful visit to Illinois by a 12 member delegation from the Vladimir area that included one of the Oblast's Vice Governors, the wife of the Governor, and nine directors of area enterprises. We are hoping this will help lead to successful trade and investments. (They were here in part to participate in the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the founding of our Sister City Association.) This visit included, for example, a trip to a North Carolina manufacturer of brick making equipment by one of the participants, a luncheon in Chicago co-hosted by Serendipity and the American-Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the signing of several "agreements," including one with the Governor of Illinois.

Serendipity has provided us with selected comments from recent teachers in the American Home project.

---

For an interesting view of the Russian economic story, see Ron Pope's observation on the development of small enterprise in Vladimir in his essay, "What Is To Be Done?" an exclusive of the CCSI Web site.

Last updated:    September 1997

A print version of much of the information contained in this NIS Third Sector Organizations section can be found in the The Post-Soviet Handbook (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1999).

CCSI Home	Announcements	Eurasia	Opinion/Analysis	Bookstore	Site Map	Search
	Center for Civil Society International Ideas and information for civic action worldwide