From Russia with love by Justina

Questo post è disponibile anche in: Italian

Just few weeks passed after my return trip from an amazing training course “InFormal”. This training course took place from 6 till 16 of September in Rostov the Great, in Russia. In Russia there are two cities with the same name, the other Rostov which is close to the river Don, is in the south of the country. There I had an opportunity to participate in international training course “InFormal”, get to know an antique city of Rostov the Great which is more than 200 km far away from the capital Moscow, on the cost of Black lake. This city is also recognized as one of the historical capitals which belongs to the group called “The Golden Ring”.

In this “InFormal” training course the main language was English. There were three different phases of the project, which involved thirty five participants from different Participant and Partner countries such as Armenia, the Ukraine, Azerbaijan… in total we were a huge beautiful “melting pot” made of twenty two different nationalities. Italy was represented by me, as a project manager from Youmore Morcelli Giovani from Chiari (Bs) and other two participants from Napoli. After the conclusion of the first phase of the project, every participant was asked to develop an activity in his or her home country according to their preferences in different topics and working areas. These activities will be evaluated in the third phase of the project, which will take place in Czech Republic in December.

During the first three days we had an opportunity to learn new and informal methods of communication to use while working with youth. To avoid very formal environment there were used different methods such as group work, master class, forum theater, photographic illustrations. This is just a small part of all variety of different methods we used during one week. With these methods youngsters could be approached as well. The following three days we were divided into groups. I was in a group with a girl from Turkey, a girl from Greece and one Armenian guy who was representing Bulgaria. Our group prepared a workshop under the title “Active youth participation” to test the level of involvement of the participants during the prepared activity. This activity was design for work with youngsters.

As for the second, middle phase of the project, while waiting the last phase in Czech Republic, after my return to Chiari, I am working on brainstorming of the ideas and programming the activities which I could implement in my working area with young people. I had an opportunity to present my organization’s activities and projects by Youmore Morcelli Giovani in front of an international audience. The intercultural evening surely was not missed with the presentation of different gastronomic dishes, traditional clothes and dances. During the free night out all the participants were invited to the Georgian restaurant for a typical Russian dinner. In day time during our free from activities afternoon our group explored the city of Rostov the Great, which was first mentioned in chronicles in 862 A.D. Particularly fascinated was the guided tour to the Kremlin. The Kremlin once was a powerful fortress in the Middle Ages also called “Manor court”.

The original residence of Metropolis tells the story of the city and is bounded by the Uspenskij church which is dated back to the sixteen century , St. John the Theologian church and the garden. Inside Kremlin we also visited museum of “finift” (it is a Greek word meaning “splendid stone”) – special material which was used in church and nowadays beautiful jewelry creations are being made out of it. In this museum our group had a chance to see a big collection of miniatures and other handcrafts from this material which made Rostov the Great famous from 700 A.D. Just one step away from Kremlin, in the characteristic local shops which recall the old architectural Russian style, I could find some local specialties to bring back to Chiari as a small souvenir to my colleagues Sona and Uliana. Both have tried the famous Russian candies called “Alionka”. This chocolate brand is famous since 1966 and became an icon of Soviet confectionery production, which even today has not changed its image of a small girl’s face, which looks as a Russian doll in retro graphics.