Congress Of Russian Americans' Events To Focus On Improving US-Russia Ties - President

Congress of Russian Americans' Events to Focus on Improving US-Russia Ties - President

Improving US-Russia relations and preserving the Russian cultural heritage in the United States has become the main focus of a series of events dedicated to the 45th anniversary of the Congress of Russian Americans (CRA), CRA President Natalie Sabelnik told Sputnik.

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th August, 2018) Improving US-Russia relations and preserving the Russian cultural heritage in the United States has become the main focus of a series of events dedicated to the 45th anniversary of the Congress of Russian Americans (CRA), CRA President Natalie Sabelnik told Sputnik.

"It is important that Americans are familiar with Russian culture, familiar with what is going on and how we can work together to improve US-Russia relations," Sabelink said.

Sabelnik noted that the "Russian-America" anniversary forum, a conference scheduled for September 8 in San Francisco, California, will be held at the CRA's national headquarters located there.

"Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov will be our special guest speaker," Sabelnik said.

The conference in San Francisco will consist of four sections, including Preserving Russian Language and Culture Abroad; Cultural and Historical Heritage; Socio-Economic Climate; and US-Russia Relations, Sabelnik explained.

Distinguished economists, business leaders and historians are expected to speak at Russian educational programs in the United States on different issues concerning the history of US-Russia relations as well as on the economic issues and political relations between two countries, Sabelnik said.

Sabelnik recalled that the CRA was founded during the Cold War as an anti-communist organization.

"Our main goal is to combat Russophobia, but also to preserve the Russian language and Russian historical heritage so that Russian-Americans can be proud of their historical homeland as well as, raise our children to be our future leaders."

Sabelnik said that on the eve of CRA's 45th anniversary, the organization will unveil a bronze statue of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco - one of the most revered saints of Russians leaving abroad.

The statue of St. John will be erected in the courtyard of the St. Tikhon of Zadonsk church in San Francisco.

In the 1950s, St. John organized an orphanage there for children who fled with him to the United States from communist China through the Philippine island of Tubabao.

The statue was donated by "Dialogue of Cultures - United World" International Charitable Fund and its President Ruslan Bayramov.

"He gifted it to me because I was born in Shanghai and was blessed by St. John," Sabelnik said, adding that she entered the United States among a group of Russian refugees from the Philippines after St. John received a permission from the US Congress to grant them asylum in 1950-51.

Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov and Archbishop Kyrill of San Francisco and Western America from the Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia (ROCOR) are expected to attend the unveiling ceremony.

The Congress of Russian Americans is one of the oldest Russian-American non-profit organizations and has some 10,000 members throughout the United States.

St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco, whose secular name was Mikhail Maximovich, was canonized by ROCOR in 1994.