Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Launch of the construction of the new American Center in Kyiv, Ukraine


I came across this bit of important information in "Under Secretary Tara Sonenshine to Travel to Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia," stating that "in Kyiv, Ukraine, April 11-13, the Under Secretary will help launch the construction of the new American Center."

May I immodestly note that, having had the privilege to be the Public Affairs Officer in Kyiv, Ukraine (1993-1995), our public diplomacy team managed to establish the first -- and only, so far as I know -- new American Center in the NIS after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A few years later, it was closed and transferred to another, far more modest location (after my departure from post) for "budgetary reasons," so far as I can tell.

I think it would not be inappropriate, during the Ukrainian visit of Under Secretary Sonenshine, in a country that values history and aspires to continuity, that the first Kyiv American Center, welcomed enthusiastically by Ukrainians, be mentioned at the launching of the new Center -- the first (and only?) "American House" opened in the former USSR.

Meanwhile, allow me to congratulate the Kyiv PD team in having the Center reopened after all these years. See "Window on America Centers: A Project of the US Embassy in Ukraine," which contains the below image:


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