25.01.2012 | Alumni Assistants at American Corners, December 2011 Report

	Alumni Assistants at American Corners, December 2011	(926 Kb)

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Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
Population: 256 000
Kamchatka's largest city, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, stretches around the northeast side of Avacha Bay, and is the hub of the peninsula's economy, government, history and home to over half the territory's population. The city served as the regional headquarters since the 19th century.
Kamchatka's people are tied to the sea, fishing and related industries. Today the city is being refurbished and developed as the capital of th Kamchatka krai (region, which joined the Koriyak Independent district to the Kamchatka Oblast in 2007.

American Centers and Corners are small libraries created by American experience and their mission is to provide information about USA to its patrons and thereby to promote a better understanding between our countries.
The Embassy provides so called “basic set” of literature and the equipment and the most important thing – organizes annual trainings for AC coordinators.
What does a “basic set” include?
The book collection consists of 5 sections:
- history, economics, politics, state and law;
- business info (directories for entrepreneurs and businessmen);
- education (American universities and their programs, handbooks for writing application and grants);
- textbooks, books on method of teaching and learning the English language (including tests on TOEFL, GMAT, SAT, GRE), dictionaries;
- audio-and-videomaterials, CDs, maps, posters and pictures.
Thus the mission of each American Center and Corner in Russia is to be a partner in promoting mutual understanding between the United States and Russia.
On April 28, 2005 the American information centre «the American Corner» was opened in Kamchatka regional research library named after S.P. Krasheninnikov.
Many officials took part in the opening ceremony – the US Ambassador to Russia Alexander Wershbow, the US Consul General in Vladivostok John Mark Pommershaim, the First Deputy Governor of Kamchatka oblast Chistyakov A.B., the Head of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky city Skvortsov V.V., the Head of Cultural Department of oblast administration Rebrov A.D.
In general about a 100 of people were invited to the ceremony of Kamchatka AC opening, among them there were the representatives of oblast and local administration, rectors and teachers of the universities, school teachers and alumni of US government sponsored programs.