Our Partners in Moscow
 
Who We Are

A partnership of individuals from Ann Arbor area congregations with a Danish Lutheran Society and the Russian Orthodox Church, ministering to crucial human needs in Russia.

RUSSIA WITH LOVE is a gathering formed in 1998 by persons from a number of church traditions, including Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Disciples of Christ and United Church of Christ for the purpose of working in partnership with the Danish Lutheran St. Paul Society and the Russian Orthodox Church. The goal is to strengthen the Russian Orthodox Church after decades of Communist oppression.

Over several years more than fifty people from Ann Arbor have become directly acquainted with the work of Connie Meyer and Fr. Pavel Vishnevsky in Russia. RUSSIA WITH LOVE was initiated in response to a concern to help in the process of church renewal and outreach to the poor there. The monies raised by RUSSIA WITH LOVE have largely gone to support Fr. Pavel's and Connie Meyer's mission of church renewal and outreach to the needs of the poor in Russia.

All who are interested are invited to join the RUSSIA WITH LOVE action committee, which meets monthly--usually from 10 am till noon on the second Saturday of the month at Memorial Christian Church (corner of Hill and Tappan, across from the University Business School), and occasionally at St. Vladimir Russian Orthodox Church at 9900 Jackson Rd., Dexter, MI 48130.

From April 23 to May 7, a team of three doctors, Alexey Viktorovich Trusov, Oleg Igorevich Starostin, and Elena Leonidovna Perskaya from Moscow visited Ann Arbor for special training in burn care at the Trauma Burn Center in The University of Michigan's Medical Center. We would like to thank Dr. Stewart Wang [surgery.med.umich.edu], who led the training sessions. Dr. Wang's specialty is blunt force trauma an area of focused study. A major issue in burn care is controlling infection, which was another focus.

Here are their reports:

Dr. Oleg Starostin's report.

From 23/04/2010 till 08/05/2010 a team or Russian medical doctors including Dr. Trusov, Dr. Starostin and Dr. Perskaya had a training in Burn care in the Burn unit of UM in Ann-Arbor. The purpose of the visit was a profession exchange in Burn care -- acute burn injury and its consequences. During two weeks Dr. Wang who is a head of the UM Burn Unit introduced us to the history of the Unit, conferences, wound care and all stages of burn care. Doctors and medical staff kindly provided us with a very helpful information including burn prevention, modern technologies in surgical and conservative burn treatment, rehabilitation after severe burns, new electronic technologies. We were lucky to meet a famous plastic surgeon who gave us a lot of useful information concerning reconstructive surgery in burns. It was a very good experience for me and gave me a lot in my professional and personal life.

Dr. Alexey Trusov's report

Everything was arranged in a good way. Starting from the day we arrived we kindly and warmly treated. My host family -- Kashehnko -- was great. They were doing their best for me to have a comfortable stay. They were really caring, attentive, patient and very tactful. Two weeks is long enough to get to know a person and I have to admit that they are really very kindhearted people. I am really grateful to them.

I wanted to say thanks to all members of Russia with love and Russian Orthodox Church in Ann Arbor who took care of us and made our visit to US possible. We would go to visit different people almost everyday and we were surrounded by care and attention. Our trip to Henry Ford's museum, visiting an oratorio in the First Presbyterian Church, a barbecue in the Russian Orthodox Church -- will always remain in my memory.

Russia with love kindly provided us with pocket money for 2 weeks and it made us feel very comfortably.

The local transportation was very well arranged -- we were brought to the hospital and back and in many other places. Thanks to Dima Kashenko and Igor Obertas for their help.

From Dr. Lena Perskaya

Our trip to the UM Burn Unit had an enormous importance for the three of us.

Dr. Wang is a head of the Burn Unit and he was in charge of us during our stay. He is an outstanding doctor and has a beautiful personality. Even being very busy preparing his Unit for President Obama's visit to Ann Arbor (in case of emergency), he was doing his best to make our visit very informative, fruitful and comfortable. Thanks to him we could see all stages of burn care.

We had meetings with everybody from the famous wound team and could see their work in real time. We were impressed by the system and their cooperation. Seeing new technologies in burn care was very important for doctors. But after all the most important thing was to see a totally different manner of treating patients -- a bedside manner -- which release a hospital related stress and even helps the doctor to feel more comfortable and ... human! I liked the attitude to relatives -- they can come almost any time the wish, they get information about their loved ones from doctors, nurses, social workers.

For me personally the most significant thing to discover was the Burn prevention program. It includes many different projects -- nurses coming to schools to talk about burns with kids; firefighters coming to the Unit and to schools, making movies, bringing kids and their families to the Trauma Burn center and many others. I hope we can start a prevention program in Russia through the charity fund in the 9^th hospital.

We were also lucky to meet Dr. Feller who is a founder of the Trauma Burn center in UM. He is a man of 85, but still very active and leads a full life. He was the one to teach many burn surgeons throughout US. His pupils founded many Burn centers and became very famous. Dr. Feller still tries his best to help the prevention program work, he stays updated and is informed about all new technologies and events in Burn care. He generously gave us a lot of books and different tutorials concerning Burn care.

Apart for the hospital everything was beautifully organized as well and prepared for us to feel comfortable and safe in US. I am very thankful to the people I stayed with. It was really lucky to stay in two different places in AA. I enjoyed staying with Linda Speck who is a member of Russia with love and is a very bright and kind-hearted person. Linda helped me a lot in transporation in AA and introduced me to many of her friend which was so nice of hers. I could visit the First Presbyterian Church with her and could meet many interesting people there. A Sunday concert givein Mendelson's "Elijah" was amazing and I enjoyed it a lot.

The second family I stayed with were Bill and Betty Anderson, who are members of Russia with love as well. I really enjoyed staying with them -- not only Betty is a great hostess and a great cook, but both Bill and Betty are very active and it really impressed me -- golf, volleyball, woodcrafting, sewing – and that's not it! I really felt home in their place.

People from Russian Orthodox Church were very kind and we had a wonderful barbecue party though it was pouring deadly.

A good thing about the whole trip was an agreement to go forward and bring doctors from UM Trauma Burn center to Moscow next year and show them the 9^th hospital burn unit. We really hope that connections established during this trip will keep on developing and we'll be able to work together.

Provide support for Russian students to spend a year at an American college

Arrange for Russian doctors to visit the U.S. for training

• Food, medicine and clothes for single mothers, families with very low income, and the elderly
• Support for Dagmar School which provides instruction for three different groups:
• For adults, in making vestments
• for first through fourth grade children at the Orthodox Christian School at Sviblovo, in embroidery and in making bobbin lace
• For girls at orphanage in Khodkovo, in making bobbin lace
• Support for the Orthodox Christian School at Sviblovo, in the form of school fees anf food for those who need such help
• Support for Children's Hospitals, specifically
• Morozovskaia Department 21 for newborns up to 12 months, who have infections, heart problems, cancer, hydrocephalos. Of 1623 patients last year, only 12 died.
• Speranskyi Burn Hospital, from which doctors will visit the Trauma Burn Center at The University of Michigan, in spring 2010, for special training in burn care and the possible beginning of future exchanges.
• Help in emergency situations, such as hospitalizations, special medical tests, and funerals.