March 20, 2016: the first "video bridge" was held between senior high school students of Taganrog Municipal School Number 5 and Khartsyzsk Vocational School.
The first dialog in this format was initiated by the Russian school and Taganrog Foreign Relations Office within the framework of the
International Project "The Heritage of Saints Cyril and Methodius in the modern world". The mover for the project on the side of partner city
Khartsyzsk (Donetsk Peoples' Republic) was Lyudmila Rudich, a Russian language teacher.
The first reaction of participating school students was awkward as they asked each other the first questions on their schools, places of interest in their cities, what's to see, what's to read and what languages they study. It turned out that in Donetsk Peoples' Republic students have an opportunity to attend lessons of both Russian and Ukrainian. Khartsyzsk Vocational School students recited in Ukrainian the poem "Love your language" by Volodymyr Sosiura, while Taganrog students were amazed to find out they were able to understand its meaning without need of translation. Russian students reciprocated with several poems in Ukrainian. Finally, 9th grader Sasha Badulina read her own poetry in Russian. Verses in the girl's poem contained everything that unites us all: the desire to save the peace on this planet.
After this poetical "call-over", the conversation became easier. Students in the Taganrog's partner city like Russian action drama film "We're from the future" (American title: "Black Hunters"), speak fluently both Russian and Ukrainian, but think only in Russian. Most boys and girls from
Khartsyzsk consider themselves Russian Orthodox and regularly go to church.
In the end of the first international video bridge organized in the School Number 5, all participants on both ends greeted each other and summed up that young people in both cities have many things in common and need to keep in touch again and again.