Oak Ridge and Russian town were 'sisters.' Then COVID, Ukraine war disrupted the friendship.

Editor’s note: Russian journalists Evgenia “Zhenya” Shcherbina and Stanislav “Stas” Zakharkin spent a few weeks working in The Tennessean newsroom as fellow of the International Center for Journalists, a Washington, D.C.,-based nonprofit that promotes journalism globally.

“Sister cities is people to people. It’s not government to government,” said Ken Luckmann as we visit him and his wife, Jerry, in their cozy Oak Ridge home.

During this present age of global conflict, when some governments are hindering connections between citizens, we, Russian journalists who visited Oak Ridge, Tennessee, decided to remember the program to which Ken Luckmann devoted most of his life.

Luckmann was fascinated by Russia for many years and, in 1988, he went there as part of what he calls a “medical tour.”

Ken visited the city of Obninsk, near Moscow, and became so enamored with the local community that he eventually spearheaded the Obninsk-Oak Ridge sister city program.

A sister-city relationship is a formal agreement between leaders of communities from different countries focused on friendly cultural and economic ties.

The Obninsk-Oak Ridge relationship began in 1992, lasted almost 30 years and was only suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the ensuing war between Russia and Ukraine threatens to completely destroy the direct friendly, religious and professional ties established in previous years.

What benefits did the twinning program between Obninsk and Oak Ridge bring? Who needed it, what memories did it leave with the participants, and what are the possible prospects for this program?

We addressed these questions to its participants and organizers.

From the archives: Travel with Sister Cities of Nashville, even if virtually for now | Opinion

How the relationship between Oak Ridge and Obninsk began

Ken Luckmann is a doctor, and his wife Jerry is the head of the Oak Ridge Girl Scouts.

They live in the city of Oak Ridge, one of the three main centers of the U.S. 1940s era Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb.

In the late 1980s, the Luckmanns visited the Russian city of Obninsk as part of a collaboration with doctors specializing in nuclear disaster medicine.

Obninsk is a small town with 120,000 inhabitants, which is located 65 miles southwest of Moscow.

Like Oak Ridge, Obninsk for a long time remained a closed city in which Soviet physicists worked on the mystery of nuclear fusion.

In 1954, the name of the city, which had not previously been on any map, became known throughout the world. The world's first nuclear power plant was opened in Obninsk.

In addition to nuclear physics institutes, medical institutions also operate in Obninsk. One of them, the Institute of Radiology, which treats patients with radiation sickness, has become a point of interest for Ken Luckman.

“Our particular goal was to provide some medications that were needed for adults and children who had thyroid problems related to the Chernobyl incident,” Luckmann explains.

He refers to an explosion that occurred in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on the territory of present-day Ukraine.

A large number of people were infected with radiation, many of them were treated in Obninsk. Luckmann gave Obninsk health officials thousands of doses of thyroid medicine donated by pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies from Oak Ridge.

Ken was also interested in how the medical system in Russia works in general. He recalls that many things in Russian medicine surprised him, as they differed from American practices.

For example, hospital rooms were designed for four patients in Russia, not for one as in the United States.

“A room in our hospital basically is usually a private room with an option for monitoring of heart rhythm problems and others that just were not there. They had a salt cave that they used to treat asthma with,” Luckmann recalls.

He was also surprised that all medicine (as was customary in the late USSR) was state-owned and doctors did not have the right to conduct private practice.

During this medical tour, Luckmann realized that he liked Obninsk.

“I think the good part of the trip was that the Russian people, whom we interacted with at hotels and other places, were extremely friendly. We really enjoyed it, although it was not a long term relationship, it was a short term opportunity for me to talk to some of these people,” Luckmann recalls.

As a result, during his business trip he became friends with many doctors, physicists, translators and other specialists from Obninsk. They invited him to Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Returning home, Luckmann decided that these friendly relations should be continued.

At around the same time, the initiative to start cooperation came from the Russian side.

Oleg Savchenko, the governor of the Kaluga region, of which Obninsk is part, proposed establishing sister city relationship in 1990.

It immediately became the subject of a KGB investigation. However, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and the KGB disappeared along with it.

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Obninsk and Oak Ridge see how the ‘other side’ does things

Former Oak Ridge Mayor Edmund Nephew first visited Obninsk in 1992. By then the status of sister cities was officially established.

Ken Luckmann's wife Jerry Luckmann was already developing Oak Ridge's sister city relationship with Naka shi, Japan. And then the couple decided: “Why not build sisterly relations with the Russian town?”

Soon they began to develop a completely official twinning program. Luckmann invited colleagues to visit Oak Ridge as part of this program.

“Ones we established sister-city relations, we began to look for opportunities to participate in various exchanges. And the initial one that we had, was a group that was sent from Obninsk to Oak Ridge,” Luckmann said. “We arranged for host families. We gave them tours including the great smoky mountains, our local facilities in the areas of interest.”

The first group included various folks who had professional interest, including the interpreter-translator and the priest from the Russian Orthodox temple in Obninsk.

Subsequently, Ken took a group of three additional doctors-physicians, including radiation oncologist and a couple of other specialties.

In the 2000s Ken and Jerry Luckmann joined SisterCities International, which in those days, was able to provide grant money, which was spent on airfare and other things that were expensive to pay for delegates from Russia.

“We did various programs which were personally financed. We had a group of kids who formed a soccer team here and went to Obninsk to play soccer,” Luckmann said. “Obninsk had its semi-professional soccer team, and it was way better than what we had here. Their teams are very, very good. And we had our match in their stadium.”

Working as volunteers for probably the first five years, the Luckmanns began to ask for grant funds.

“We incorporated the sister city support organization as a nonprofit to call a nonprofit corporation, so that we could accept the grant funds and distribute them appropriately and account for them,” Luckmann said.

Thus, in the early 2000s, relations between Obninsk and Oak Ridge became not only professional, but also charitable.

One of the largest grants – $40,000 – was facilitated by a non-profit organization the United Way, which raises funds on a yearly basis and then distributes that the money to provide services such as for physically and mentally disabled people in Oak Ridge, for food pantries that provide food for families in distress, and for shelters where domestic violence survivors can go to escape a home situation with children and so on.

“We had a group from Obninsk that came to learn about those programs here. They had an opportunity to go ahead and help the ‘Food for Kids’ program, but they had an opportunity to help pack trucks so that they could distribute the food,” Luckmann said “They saw representation from all of these programs that the United way helped us arrange and they went back to Obninsk and to a certain extent that the things that they did changed because of what they saw here.”

He believes that this is the most important thing in the program: the opportunity for participants to see how things work “on the other side” and perhaps arrange something similar at home.

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Religious and elder exchanges created mutual benefits

Communication also took place at the religious level.

First United Methodist Church of Oak Ridge established contacts with the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1990s.

Several elderly women who were parishioners of the First Methodist Church visited the Orthodox temple of Boris and Gleb, which is located in the village of Belkino, not far from Obninsk.

Priest Alexey Polyakov recalls how women from Oak Ridge helped him paint the fence of an Orthodox temple.

However, the greatest impression the guests from Oak Ridge made on the Russian older women was this:.

“They talked about how their elderly people organize themselves after retirement in order to continue living a full life. For our old ladies with their Soviet mentality, it was a kind of discovery,” Polyakov recalls.

The guests from America also promised to help with equipment for setting up a charity canteen in the temple.

Mark Flynn, the current pastor of the First Methodist Church, says he was a schoolboy during those exchanges. However, he remembers well the atmosphere that reigned in the temple when guests from Russia arrived at Oak Ridge. “It was post-Cold Wwar time, we realized that we are not enemies anymore, a great opportunity has opened up to build inter-church relationships,” Flynn says.

Over the next 20 years, sister-city relations flourished. In the 1990s, Russia suffered from a severe economic crisis and guests from Oak Ridge helped their sister city financially.

Oak Ridge residents donated money to an orphanage as well as a local organization for disabled people. The Russians reciprocated. Oak Ridge Boulevard was inaugurated in Obninsk in 2002. Then a fitness center called Oakridge Fitness was opened.

The last exchange program was supposed to take place in 2020.

Seven people from Obninsk, including the mayor of the city, Vladislav Shapsha (now the governor of the Kaluga region) were to visit Oak Ridge.

However, the COVID pandemic frustrated all plans. The decision was made to postpone the trip. Then the war began.

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How Russia’s war with Ukraine led to the suspension of relations between Oak Ridge and Obninsk

With the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Oak Ridge authorities decided to break off twinning relations with Obninsk.

The Oak Ridge City Council was set to vote on approving a resolution dissolving the relationship with Obninsk, Russia “due to the Russian government's military attack on the nation of Ukraine.” Mayor Warren Gooch made the motion and city Council member Chuck Hope seconded.

However, this resolution met with serious resistance from Oak Ridge scientists. “Some people from Oak Ridge National Laboratory who had experience with people from Russia, not necessarily Obninsk, stood up at the city council and said: ‘Look, sister cities are people and people, it's not government to government,” Ken Luckmann said.

“Every one of us, at one time or another, has looked at our leaders and been ashamed by their actions and decisions. Sometimes, as a result of said actions and decisions, the world looks at us in ways that make us uncomfortable and has often looked down upon us for being American. They are unable to separate the people from the government ... Let’s not make that mistake in regards to the Russian people”, according to a letter sent to the city council by Sean Seyfert, an art teacher at Robertsville Middle School and current Sister City board chairman.

As a result, the city council decided to soften the resolution. The sister city program between Oak Ridge and Obninsk persisted but without any city funding.

The mayor of Oak Ridge was dissatisfied with this decision. “I think it's a half measure, and I think we should have taken much stronger action,” Gooch said about this decision to the local media The Oak Ridger, a sister publication of The Tennessean and The Knoxville News Sentinel.

We were unable to speak with Gooch. He did not respond to SMS and audio messages requesting an interview. The Obninsk authorities also chose to remain silent.

At first, Obninsk officials agreed to an interview, but days later, they were unable to find time the discuss the relationship with Oak Ridge.

Supporters of the sister cities hope there’s a future for their friendship

Many years have passed since the program started. Manyof the members have either retired or have already died.

What about the younger generation? Does it need this program now or is it even interested in such things?

We asked students from Obninsk about this and they believe that exchange programs should be preserved.

22-year-old Alina Begimova is a student from Kazakhstan (post-Soviet republic in Central Asia) who is studying in Obninsk in the Nuclear Energy and Thermal Physics, Operation of Nuclear Plants program.

After graduating from university, she plans to stay in Russia to work in nuclear energy in Obninsk.

“I, like many of my teachers, believe that science and culture should be outside of politics. These areas should not suffer due to political differences,” Begimova says.

She has respect for the United States: “The USA is a worthy state that has been able to achieve progress in many areas. I would like to see how science there is organized”.

Her university friend, Karina Lazareva, is much more skeptical about the United States.

“As a citizen of Russia, I do not share the U.S. views on the world order.”

Lazareva assumes that the United States needs this cooperation more than Russia.

“In terms of nuclear energy, Russia has gone far ahead,” she says.

However, Lazareva also believes that cooperation between the two nuclear cities would be useful for science and for humanity as a whole.

Church leaders express a similar opinion. “Our governments have their agenda, which often keeps us apart, but as Christians, we understand ourselves as all being human and therefore, we must be in relationship together,” said Steve Martin, director of communications of First United Methodist Church.

Priest Mark Flynn agrees. He believes that such connections should not be broken, because now they are needed more than ever.

“It was necessary during the Cold War, but we didn’t have it. It came after the Cold War, and therefore probably less useful. Now we are going to a period where we're looking at injustice, genocidal war in Ukraine and the conversations between church people, between Christians are more important than have ever been,” Flynn asserted.

His colleague from Russia, priest Alexei Polyakov, has a similar position. He still keeps memories of his trips to Oak Ridge and sends cards to his Tennessee friends every Easter. “We are connected as science cities that are at the forefront of scientific development. It is important to maintain these connections. It is very easy to destroy bridges, indeed, but it will be very difficult to create them again,” Polyakov says.

Ken and Jerry Luckman ay they know it is easy to stop everything, but it’s difficult to establish relations anew. T hey hope that the relationship between the cities will not stop and they should try to maintain it as long as possible.

“I think it's going to take a significant amount of time to reestablish the relationship. So I'm thinking I or my successor will be able to go ahead and continue the kind of relationship in terms of learning about how you do things, how we do things, what can we learn from you, what can you learn from us to make some of the things that you do better,” Ken Luckmann said.

He emphasizes that three years ago, before the war and the pandemic, there were no problems with the exchange program, and they were preparing to receive the next delegation from Obninsk.

The future of the sister-city relationship remains unclear because of the war.

All exchange programs have been suspended since the beginning of spring 2022.

State relations between Russia and the United States are at their worst point since the end of the Cold War. However, connections between people, established since the 1990s and 2000s, persist.

People exchange letters and wish each other Merry Christmas. This gives hope that when the dark times end, the citizens of the two countries will not have to start from scratch.

Stanislav Zaharkin and Evgenia Shcherbina for The Tennessean.

Evgenia Shcherbina currently works for the podcast studio Libo/Libo, which presents science and entertainment news. She previously served as an editor for the independent publication Batenka, da vy transformer, which was active between 2007-2021. In 2019, she was nominated for Russian Sci&Tech Writer of the Year.

Stanislav “Stas” Zakharkin is a freelancer who formerly served as a correspondent for the Moscow bureau of Ura.ru. His articles have also appeared in The Moscow Times and the Novosibirsk-based Sib.fm.

What is a sister city relationship?

According to Sister Cities International:

“A sister city, county, or state relationship is a broad-based, long-term partnership between two communities in two countries. A relationship is officially recognized after the highest elected or appointed official from both communities sign off on an agreement to become sister cities.

“A city may have any number of sister cities, with community involvement ranging from a half dozen to hundreds of volunteers. In addition to volunteers, sister city organizations can include representatives from nonprofits, municipal governments, the private sector, and other civic organizations.

“Each sister city organization is independent and pursues the activities and thematic areas that are important to them and their community including municipal, business, trade, educational, and cultural exchanges and projects with their sister city.”

-- Source: https://www.sistercities.org/

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Ukraine war strains Tennessee and Russian sister cities ties