Siberian Bridges Inc

VISIT OUR FAVORITE PART OF RUSSIA IN JUNE 2014   --   Can you imagine...

• spending your vacation as far from home as possible?
• in the land where Genghis Khan played as a child?
• where foreigners were not allowed for 75 years and few venture even now?
• whose disarming hospitality and natural beauty have been kept secret by geography, politics and history? 

 

Siberian Bridges' Founder, Thomas Dickinson, will lead A Taste of Zabaikalye Tour June 1-12, 2014, with stays at the Daursky Biospheric Reserve located at a bottleneck in one of the two great Asian flyways (6 varieties of cranes pass this way!), Mt Alkhanai National Park, one of seven sites sacred to Tibetan Buddhism, and Chita, capital of the province and a cultural crossroads since Peter the Great.  Places are still available, but contact siberianbridges@gmail.com soon for a brochure as the tour will close soon.

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR PROGRAMS!

COMPUTERS FOR KIDS.  This program gives old laptop computers second life by refurbishing and sending them to remote orphanages and schools in the Zabaikalye region.

DIGITAL CAMERAS FOR KIDS.  The Children at the Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky Children's Home are fascinated with digital cameras. Let's encourage their talent by donating second-hand digital cameras for the Home.  If you have a used laptops or digital cameras to donate, please contact us at siberianbridges@gmail.com.

OTHER SIBERIAN BRIDGES PROGRAMS. The first and longest-operating NGO in Zabaikalye, Siberian Bridges programs and projects include:

• Сибирские Мосты ("Sibirskye Mosti" or "Siberian Bridges"), our sister organization in Chita
• Collaboration with Link Vostok, a local non-profit with a complementary mission
• English Teachers for Universities and Grade Schools                                                       
• Cultural, Professional, and University Student Exchanges                                     
• Regional Library Sponsorship                          
• Children's Home Support                                       

 

ABOUT ZABAIKALYE.  A fascinating region 4000 miles east of Moscow, Zabaikalye borders Lake Baikal, China, and Mongolia. Its diverse population includes Buryats, Evenks, Russians and many others. Home to world-renowned Buddhist monasteries; a Russian ‘Old Believer’ colony; shamanist and animist religions; and remnants of a vibrant pre-Revolutionary Jewish community.  Renowned as the birthplace of Genghis Khan, as well as the site of exile for Russia’s beloved “Decembrist” revolutionaries, it was site of a prison of the last Chinese Emperor.    

Once a thriving trading center, during the Soviet period Zabaikalye housed nuclear missiles and was closed to foreigners.  Its military-based economy and society were almost completely isolated even from the rest of the Soviet Union until 1988, when its missiles were decommissioned.  Post-Soviet Zabaikalye has experienced widespread poverty and attending social problems - including high numbers of orphaned and abandoned children - as the region struggles to develop an economy that currently ranks as one of Russia’s poorest. Zabaikalye’s once pristine natural environment is increasingly threatened as forests and other natural resources are stripped for sale to nearby China.

THANK YOU FOR HELPING SIBERIAN BRIDGES TO CONTINUE SERVING THIS OVERLOOKED REGION.