Friendship of Peoples

RIA Novosti caption: The USA and the USSR youth
XIII meeting in Kishinev participants. Sept. 1, 1984.
[image source]

I found this picture in RIA Novosti's online archive. It reminded me that nine years ago this year I went to Chisinau for a summer that changed my life. When I went there in 1999, of course I knew I wasn't the first American student to spend time there (though it sometimes felt that way), but I didn't realize I'd had predecessors in the 1980s.

Interestingly, on the date this picture was taken, I was taking part in my own US-USSR "youth meeting" in Leningrad - it was the first day of what would be three years of school for me at School No. 232.