July 5 2018
Eight members of Congress, all Republicans, spent America's Independence Day in Russia.
Seven senators — John Kennedy (R-LA), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Steve Daines (R-MT), John Hoeven (R-ND), John Thune (R-SD), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Ron Johnson (R-WI) — and one House member, Kay Granger (R-TX), are all in Moscow over the Fourth of July holiday this week for talks with Russian lawmakers and officials.
Kennedy
described Tuesday's meeting as "damn frank, very, very, very frank, no holds barred."
But Russian lawmaker Vyacheslav Nikonov
described the meeting as "one of the easiest ones in my life."
Prior to heading out, members of the delegation promised “to be tough with Russian officials ahead of the president’s visit, especially on matters of election interference,”
But they struck a conciliatory tone once there: The point of their visit, Shelby stressed to the Duma leader, was to “strive for a better relationship” with Moscow, not “accuse Russia of this or that or so forth.”
The only problem with that is Sanders didn't spend his honeymoon in Russia.
Jane Sanders and then-Mayor Bernie Sanders traveled to the Soviet Union shortly after their wedding as part of a government trip to establish a sister-city relationship between Burlington, Vermont, and Yaroslavl. Sanders has previously joked that this trip was a "strange honeymoon."
This trip was not a "honeymoon" in the traditional sense and did not occur during the "height of the cold war." The purpose of this trip was to establish a sister city in Russia, not for the newlyweds to enjoy a romantic getaway. Bernie and Jane Sanders took their real honeymoon in St. Lucia in the Caribbean the following year.
Yaroslavl, Russia Burlington established its sister city relationship with Yaroslavl, Russia, in 1988.
Since then, exchanges between the two cities have involved mayors, business people, firefighters, jazz musicians, youth orchestras, mural painters, high school students, medical students, nurses, librarians, and the Yaroslavl Torpedoes ice-hockey team.
n 1993, Champlain and Trinity Colleges in Burlington sponsored six students from Yaroslavl; since then, dozens of Yaroslavl students have attended Champlain College.
In 1997, Burlington Sister City Committee members donated children's books by Vermont authors and illustrators toward the creation of an English-speaking room at the Yaroslavl Children's Library. In 2016, a delegation from Burlington traveled to Yaroslavl.
March 4 2022
BURLINGTON, Vt. —
Burlington's mayor announced Thursday the city would suspend a decades-old sister city relationship with Yaroslavl, a Russian city northeast of Moscow.
Mayor Miro Weinberger chose to halt relationships with the city, which dates back to 1988, in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It follows a
request from Gov. Phil Scott for municipalities to sever relations with the country as part of state-level sanctions.