WEST JORDAN — To get to know someone, it helps to spend time with him — the same goes for sister cities.
No one knows that better than Anatoli Gorbounov, who was in town recently to learn more about West Jordan, the sister city to Votkinsk, a similar-sized city 600 miles southeast of Moscow in Russia's Udmurt Republic, the birthplace of Russian composer Peter Tchaikovsky.
The cities' peaceful bond, however, actually has violent roots.
What began shortly after World War II as an idea of President Dwight Eisenhower to strengthen partnerships between U.S. and international communities has continued through today with Sister Cities International, a non-profit citizen diplomacy network.
West Jordan's union with Votkinsk was formed in April 1995, in the middle of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S. and Russia.
American inspectors kept a close eye on arms production activities in Votkinsk while Russian inspectors monitored the Alliant Techsystems plant in Magna. The treaty expired in May, and the Russian inspectors went home — but the sister city bond lives on.
Gorbounov and West Jordan Sister City Committee chair Jennifer Andelin have been working together to strengthen their relationship and to start new ones elsewhere in Utah.
Attempts have been made to link Tooele with Kambarka, a Russian city of about 20,000. Like Tooele, Kambarka is a community where safely destroying a chemical weapons stockpile is also an issue facing residents.
U.S. relationships with other Russian cities have been struck in North Carolina, Arizona and Wisconsin. About 3,500 communities in 137 countries have sister city programs. West Jordan is an example of one that works.
Earlier this year, West Jordan received a public safety award from Sister Cities International for working with Votkinsk on targeting crime prevention, domestic-violence education, police and fire investigative techniques and other subjects.
Over the years, delegates from both cities, including Gorbounov, have visited their sister cities to learn more about each other's communities. While in Utah, he toured Salt Lake City — including newspaper presses there — and other cities in an effort to learn more and reach out to communities that may one day have sister city ties with Russia.
Gorbounov is a "chief expert" with the Udmurt Republic's Ministry of International Relations, specializing in developing humanitarian relationships with other communities. His goal is to see communities on both ends getting an international education, to learn about different cultures and to share the information they learn.
"The world is much richer and it gives new perspectives," he said.
Gorbounov is trying to create an international database on the Internet to organize and widen the sister city movement in Russia. Such a resource center would provide communities easy access to information that will smooth the process of establishing a sister city.
"Each time, each city invents the bicycle again," he said. Gorbounov estimated Russia has around 130 sister city ties with the United States.
For "average" citizens like Andelin, it's all about connecting people with people, something that wouldn't happen without a sister city relationship.
"If communities don't care about being involved internationally, we're living in a bubble," she said.
An event such as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks should illustrate that both national and local governments should get involved in international relations. After the attacks, Andelin received a flood of e-mails from sister city ties, expressing their condolences and allegiance to the United States.
"Who would have thought of that during the Cold War?" she asked. "Friends don't fight friends. The value is that we're all working for world peace — on a sister city level, you truly can make a difference."
E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com