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The Auroville International meeting in St Petersburg is in full swing and we post here the informal meeting reports as they come in via email:

Report from Tine, 19/06/2001

Since our email connection works only since 3 am yesterday (or was it today?) this is the first message from the first AVI meeting in Russia, St. Petersburg.

Beautiful place

About 100 participants are happily assembled here, living in a hotel which was a former palace named Znamenka, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. The palace is situated in an extremely beautiful spot between dense forest and the seashore, with lots of possibilities to go for walks and jogging. Even horses are offered for outings for those who like to explore the environment on four hooves. Znamenka is a beautiful hotel, but not really a seminar hotel. We had to arrange all our equipment ourselves to be able to work - like borrowing a photocopy machine from a Russian friend which is now working in our large 'office' (my room). We deposited there Dimitry's big computer with CD-drive and -writer, a laser printer and several laptops. Our 'office' room had the only phone connection in the whole hotel, and it was dead when we arrived. But the lady at the reception called immediately a technician, who really came and repaired the line on the same day. To install the email took us longer despite very skilled computer freaks around.

Many Russian participants

The weather is mostly sunny and warm, so even the 12 Aurovilians, who arrived by train from Moscow on Sunday morning find the temperature pleasant. We have presently approx. 65 international and AVI friends, 30-40 Russians, and two Bulgarian people staying in Znamenka. The Russian participants are coming from Kiev, Moscow, Odessa, Belarussia, Kazakhstan, Oriol, Kazan; some of them took several days train ride to reach St. Petersburg. One participant from the Ukraine has sold his flat to get money to come to St. Petersburg for the AVI meeting. All these people are connected with Mother and Sri Aurobindo and want to know more about Auroville, about the yoga; they want to connect to like-minded people. In Russia many Sri Aurobindo-circles and -groups feel isolated, not connected to a larger network. Our AVI-meeting in St. Petersburg may hopefully be of help to start a livelier exchange and communication between the various parties.

AVI Board meeting

On Sunday we had our AVI board meeting in the sun under trees. Sunday evening the first introductory session with all participants was scheduled. Russian translations were provided and we had a first impression with whom we will be spending the next few days together. Also day-guests from St. Petersburg had come. After that introduction the Russians watched the video 'Impressions' in Russian language.

38 exhibition panels on Auroville

We had already a lot of fun together and the atmosphere is charged with vibrant energy. Today on the programme we had a sightseeing tour of St. Petersburg in two buses which included a visit of the Peter & Paul fortress and the Russian State museum. In the evening 41 people went to see the ballet 'Swanlake' - Julian just came back dancing and singing, saying it was so wonderful.
A few of us went to the venue downtown where tomorrow and Wednesday the 'Public Days' are organised, and finalised the preparations. The public days promise to be quite interesting. The venue is a beautiful building, 'House of Officers', with red carpets on the stairs and chandeliers meant for cultural events, with a seating capacity of more than 500 people. We have put up the 38 exhibition panels made in Auroville on the International Zone, Matrimandir, the national pavilions, and the Charter of Auroville, and it looks quite impressive.

On the first day tomorrow we plan to present Auroville to the Russian public and the second day is meant for the Russian Sri-Aurobindo-groups and other groups to talk about their experiences in Russia on spirituality and yoga.

180 page brochure..

Also today evening our 'programme brochure' was finally delivered, fresh from the printing press here in town. Originally it was planned to be some 30-40 pages but with all the Russian enthusiasm it became a book with 180 pages!! (I may add that it has cost our AVI Russia liaison Dimitry many working nights before the meeting to put it all together. When I arrived in St. Petersburg last week to help with the preparations, I still got the tail end of it.)

More reports are following so that you can tune into our energy and experiences. It's all really happening now in St. Petersburg.

Sending you greetings and love,
Tine

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