In 1993 English Rotarians came to St.Petersburg to visit their new friends - Russian Rotarians, and to enjoy the beauty of my native city. By some lucky occasion they met a teacher from my school and she invited them to come to the school and give a talk on Rotary and Rotary Youth Programs. Their visit was of great success - more than hundred students came, wondering how easy it was to avoid study simply by showing an interest to the word "Rotary", not every day you get a chance to skip a class that easily. I remember we asked questions trying to understand where is trick and why somebody would possibly do all those funny things like serving the community, cleaning public facilities, fighting world disasters and trying to help people thousands miles away. When you are 15 years old you have million of other important things to do, like watch TV, play hockey, talk to your pals on phone, then going back to TV of course. But for some reason unclear and already forgotten through the years, some of my friends and I heard something in that presentation. Something that appealed to us, something that made us change, that drove our enthusiasm and energy out, that made us say ourselves: "Let's do it!"

INTERACT
On March 10, 1993 we held a first meeting in our high school and proposed the foundation of Interact Club. There were about twenty students, half girls - no wonder it was fun. First thing we did, we arranged the elections, and after most of us got their big titles like President, International Committee Director, Treasurer, by the way it took us about a year to figure out what does the word "treasurer" mean. The only thing that missed was understanding what are we going to do next.

Orphanage
Our first program was "Orphanage", a group of 15 kids 4 to 6 years old, who were lacking parents care and the joy of everyday communication with family and friends. Now, coming there for five years, I think of those kids as a part of my life. It's not something you could simply forget about - once you met them, you want to come again and again and see them smiling and happy with you just talking to them, asking them about their good days and bad days, shaking their hands and playing "airplane" or "horse-rider" with them. "Airplane" is a game when you put a kid on your shoulders and run wild all over the room making a lot of noise - it's their favorite. Year 1993 was a tough time in Russia - food shortages, economic depression. The way we started to fund our Orphanage program was cleaning school grounds and getting some money from the school in return. We obtained a possibility to buy fruit and candy for kids. Also we arranged a series of kids-clothes collecting in different high schools of St.Petersburg and collected so much of clothes and shoes that passed it not only to our Orphanage but to a few others as well. Also, together with the first Rotaract of St.Petersburg we arranged toys collecting for the Orphanage on a big toys exhibition that took place in the city.

International Exchange
In 1994 we started a mail correspondence with English Interactors, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Colchester that originally initiated our Club foundation. It's president, Rotarian Michael Siggs is the honorary member of Rotary Club of St.Petersburg and our Interact and Rotaract Clubs. I could call him the godfather of Rotary in St.Petersburg. For those of you who had seen "Star Wars", he is like great Jedi Master Yoda to me. Well, obviously I'm not Luke Skywalker though… In summer 1994 Interactors from England came to St.Petersburg for two weeks. Most of us had a big experience in hosting a foreign student because we had a lot of exchanges through school, but still, not all of us got along with each other at first. Though, after a few days when we spent a lot of time with each other, and even started sharing our Club experiences things worked out and the friendship was saved. I remember my friend Yuri, came to my place at 11 at night together with his English guest Katherine and we all, me, my guest - Colchester Interact Club President who's name is Katherine too, we sang and tried to get some music of an old piano and my guitar till 3 in the morning. That certainly made us much closer to each other. When we came to Colchester in May next year, we were welcomed by Colchester Rotarians, including mentioned above Michael Siggs, and our host families. We had the most exciting international exchange experience I could think of.

Healthy Life Style
In March 1996 we held the first Healthy Life Style program in our high school. It all began with meeting a very special person - professor of Valeology, science about healthy lifestyle, who shared with us his experience and ideas. At first this program was a disco, or a dance party, held in a school, and featuring contests, role playing, and video clips about the harm of drugs and benefits of healthy life style. It took us about two months to prepare and arrange the first disco, but the success we met awarded us greatly. It was a live dynamic party with audience actually interacting with us through contests and responding to our effort in every possible way. We gave away a lot of prizes to keep everybody stimulated to participate, we crashed and throw away hundreds of cigarettes, we involved the audience into role playing when they learn how to say "no" to a drug. And of course it was music - dance, disco, all kinds of it. We arranged the second Dance-party in May of 96 and it was a great success as well.
Transition to Rotaract
By the year 1997 our Interact Club had an impressive history of service projects and we felt eager to go on with them. By that time we met Rotary International President Herb Brown and President Giay. We were officially admitted and appreciated as a first Interact Club in Russia, we had a beautiful motto: "Life is an interaction", and last but not least - half of Club members were girls, so it was a lot of fun and pleasure for most of us. That's why we were kind of scared of becoming 18 years old, what is the age limit for Interact Club member. To tell you the truth I was the youngest in Club and most of my friends already celebrated their 18th birthday by summer 1996. But at some point we held a special meeting to make our mind about the future of the Club.

ROTARACT
When my friends and I first started to think about establishing a Rotaract we were kind of slowed down by our past experience, thinking about starting everything over again. We seemed to picture it all in black colors, like "happy days are over", "time to grow up". This time we realized the responsibility we were taking by starting a Club. Reminds me of my Professor of Investment Class in College who said once: "In Montgomery College we take marriage very seriously, because it happens to you… only three-four times in a life."

15 Hours of Healthy Pleasure
In august 1997 Rotaract Club of St. Petersburg, second in the city and one of the first ten in the country was established. New members joined us and right from the first meeting we started to work on the program we called "15 hours of Healthy Pleasure". It was based on our Healthy Life Style Program and enhanced to one-week - two Dance-parties and three seminars. It all was to take 15 hours, 15 hours of healthy pleasure. The original goal of the program - to provide young people with clear information about the harm of drugs, tobacco and alcohol and to show the benefits of Healthy Life-Style was supplemented by the second goal - to encourage team-building through joint activities. That's how seminars were added, held for three days between two Dance-parties. Two professional psychologists lead seminars, encouraging participants to get to know each other better through games and different activities. On the last days of September 97 we presented "15 Hours of Healthy Pleasure" in one of the best high schools of the city. It was a joint effort of our Rotaract and Interact Clubs that took us exactly one month and 15 Club meetings to prepare. Every member of the Club was thinking only about the program, putting most of other things aside. The success was astonishing. The first Dance-Party was a success, but when the seminars started - that when the magic began. About 30 high school students and Club members participated in the seminars. The first day we were strangers, even students from that school did not know each other well. We played games like "Building Virtual House", that is when a group divides to a few smaller groups and each builds a house using stuff around and their own bodies. Then the other group comes inside the house and the goal is to make that group feel comfortable in your house. A few body-built houses crashed right when the other group walked in, but it was a lot of fun. We did tons of things - meditated, danced, made a small music show, created an imaginary country, described things around us. Through these three days we became real good friends, willing to share our thoughts and dreams, eager to do things together, things like Interact and Rotaract Club does. The second Dance-party was held in cooperation with those who participated in seminars and we all felt like this was a dream - so great it was. Right after the program about 15 students joined Interact Club.

Conference
One week later, on October 2 1997 we made a presentation of the program on Rotary International Presidential Conference in St. Petersburg, the first RI Presidential Conference in Russia. It was a great honor for us and what was really exciting the same day President Glenn Kinross honored us with an official Rotaract Club Charter. The picture of that moment could be found in this year first edition of "Rotaract News". On that Conference our fresh Interactors and new Rotaractors served as assistants to "Sergeant at Arms", met so many Rotarians from all over the world, it was a truly great experience. In April 1998 I started to design our Club web-site - the dream that my friends and I had for a long time. At this point I would like to tell you a few things about Rotary and new technology. RI President Rajaa Saboo said "You might not understand the language a person speaks, but still understand a person". This is very true… on one side. On the other how often does it happen to you when you speak the same language and do not understand a person? I do not even talk about computer guys and Best Buy and Circuit City sales associates, no. What I'm saying is that a lot of us tend not to reach out for new ideas, new experience, even when they could greatly benefit from it. Imagine that you have an instant access to information about Rotary Clubs all over the world, Rotarians, Projects, News. Imagine you are one foot away from one place where you could easily find all that information. Will it be something you appreciate? Would you look forward to becoming a part of it? I'm talking about Rotary web sites on the Internet.