Lyudmila Putin and Doris Schroeder-Kopf organize youth forum

Vladimir Putin’s and Gerhard Schroeder’s wives, Lyudmila Putin and Doris Schroeder-Kopf, joined their efforts to organize the Russian-German youth forum “Together to the XXI Century.” The first ladies of Russia and Germany opened the forum on May 12 in the "Russia" cinema and concert hall.

The idea of such an undertaking appeared 18 months ago, when Gerhard Schroeder and his wife visited Moscow. Since that time, Lyudmila Putin and Doris Schroeder-Kopf have actively communicated with each other on the phone, which led to the following result.

The forum will be held by the Center for the Development of the Russian Language, which invited young people from Russia and Germany to participate, people who can speak both Russian and German, who are interested in the histories and cultures of these countries, and ,of course, those who aspire to friendship in the new century. Russia and Germany had a lot of tragic moments in the past century, especially in the first part of it. Russian Minister for Culture Mikhail Shvydkoi said that the forum was a foreword to two very important events: the year 2003 will be the year of Russian culture in Germany, and the year 2004 will be the year of the German culture in Russia.

Natalia Boiko PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov