Participating Russian Rotary Clubs - Omsk Dostoevsky Rotary Club

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   City Coat of Arms                                                                          Here we are!!                                                                               City Flag

                             Russian Federal Seal                                      Children Sing Using Hands                      Rotary Exchange Students at the

                          State Educational Institution                                                                                                                 Correctional School

              A Club out-of-town Celebration                                All Singing a Chours - All Win!!                                                      Group Shot

 President Pavel Kurchinskiy Cuts the Tasty Pie!

Rotary club “Omsk Dostoevsky ” was charted in 2000.  The club consists of the people of different specializations: the directors of large city companies, officials, and specialists in culture, architecture, real estate, and education.  There are 23 members and 5 candidates in the club now.  The 2006-2007 President is Orlov Yuriy.  We devote our main projects to our children.  Since the year 2000 there have been a great number of projects, such as providing aerophone device for Special (corrective) school for deaf children, books for the orphanage  library, video and stereo system, 3 modern washing machines for the orphanage “Bird Harbor”. Moreover, every month we prepare birthday presents for children living in the orphanage and hold sport competitions for them. Last year we worked on two large projects:

• Assistance to a special corrective school № 7 for deaf children. Now its students have the opportunity to study to speak with the help of the equipment our rotary club has donated.
• Assistance to an orphanage. We have bought modern professional laundry equipment for them.

These projects were successful, so we are not going to finish with them. This year we are planning to continue our relationship with the orphanage “Bird Harbor” and the special deaf school children and do our best to meet their needs.

Omsk is situated on the banks of the north-flowing Irtysh, at its confluence with the Om River, at an altitude of 87 m, and on both branches of the Trans-Siberian railway, 2,700 km east of Moscow, it is the cross-junction of highways in the central part of Russian Federation. Passenger and freight boats along the Irtysh and the Ob Rivers provide connection from coal and mineral-mining towns in Kazakhstan, as well as oil, natural gas and lumber-rich northern Siberia. Scheduled and charter flights link Omsk with multiple domestic and international (primarily, German) destinations, making it an important air gateway to Siberia and the Far East.

The wooden fort of Omsk was erected in 1716 to protect the expanding Russian frontier, along the Ishim and the Irtysh rivers against the nomads (Kirghiz) of the Steppes. In the late 1700s, stronger works of brick were erected on the right bank of the Om; of these, the original Tobolsk and the restored Tara gates still stand, along with the original German Lutheran Church, an armory, a military jail, and commandant's house.  In 1800s and early 1900s, Omsk became the administrative center of Western Siberia and the Steppes (Kazakhstan), acquiring a few churches and cathedrals of various denominations, mosques, a synagogue, the governor-general's mansion, a military academy. Ink was joked to have been sold by the buckets. As the frontier receded and military importance diminished, the town fell into lethargy; it was during the mid-1800s that Dostoevsky lived and wrote in exile here.  The new boom began with the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway in 1890s, when the merchants flocked to the city on the rail/river junction. Many a trade company opened stores and offices here, building an elaborately decorated district of the city, and bringing the hustle-and-bustle of modern transportation, means of communications and entertainment. Foreign powers, including the British, Dutch and Germans, opened consulates to represent their commercial interests. The pinnacle came with the lavish Siberian Exposition of Agriculture and Industry in 1910, for which a complex of buildings and fountains was constructed. In line with the popularity of World Fairs of the day, the exposition influenced observers to foretell the wonders of the "Chicago of Siberia". Many of the period's buildings survive (though none from the expo), and the architecture gives the city center a distinguished historical Siberian town flavor.  Since the 1990s, Omsk, along with all of Russia, has been struggling to find its place in the new world. The former party elite, new businessmen and the criminal world mixed together and fought for the control of the city's most profitable enterprises. The most notorious cases involved Sibneft, and were reported by the New York Times, yet nothing was ever resolved. Until 2000, the feud between the regional and the municipal authorities made at least two points of view available to the public, and some work was done for the public good. This includes the establishment of the annual Siberian International Marathon (SIM), the celebration of City Days, construction of new leisure parks and renovation of the historic center. Nevertheless, the feud drained the city's resources, and two mayors were forced to leave, with a replacement all but appointed by the region's governor, in his post since the communist era. Currently, all of the region's important power levers, including the courts and the media, are in the hands of the regional government. The city is underperforming the Russian averages on economic growth and quality of life.  On March 2, 2005, the Consulate General of the Republic of Kazakhstan was opened.