Trip around the UBC Cities

In the evening of August, 26^th, 35 citizens of Greifswald between 15 and 75 years old joined the first UBC-trip organised by the city of Greifswald The main goal of that trip was to meet with citizens from the Sister City of Kotka.

From the plan to the realisation of that trip lots of ideas were developed and changed. Finally the decision to take a bus and go all around the Baltic Sea was made: from Greifswald a short trip to Saßnitz, where the ferry to Trelleborg leaves, through the night the bus went up to Stockholm and by ferry to Helsinki from where the bus finally arrived in Kotka – "City of the Sea".

The Mayor and its colleagues invited the group to the town hall and answered lots of questions about the city. Guided tours in and around Kotka, a meeting with the Kotka-Greifswald Association and an organ concert in Kotka church followed.

Most impressive was the visit to the Langinkoski Imperial Fishing Lodge of the Russian Emperor and Grand Duke Alexander III which got the travellers already into the right mood for the next place to visit: St. Petersburg. Here the good communication between UBC members opened the door to the famous Smolny for the group. After two nights in St. Petersburg we had to start our way back home, via the UBC-City Tallinn, where again the welcome for the UBC travellers was very warm. With lots of new impressions and with the feeling of having achieved a kind of a "Baltic Citizenship" the group arrived back in the evening of September, 2^nd.

Greifswald's international office has been organising citizens' trips for years. Already traditionally Greifswald-citizens take part in the annual Hanse Days and visit their sister cities regularly. The Hanse City of Greifswald, member of the UBC since 1999, sees a need and a big chance for its citizens to take part in the international activities of the City. It is good, useful and necessary that presidents, mayors and officials meet and discuss the future of the Baltic region, but to form a Baltic identity it takes the citizens. So Greifswald does not only visit their partners around the Baltic Sea – but warmly invites Baltic inhabitants to come here to meet people, make friends, feel history and future!