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Speaker: Dr. Naomi Collins and Ambassador James Collins

Dr. Naomi Collins spent over 40 years visiting and observing Russia and witnessed firsthand the immense changes the country has gone through. Her book Through dark days and white nights: Four Decades Observing a Changing Russia is an insightful and intimate eyewitness-account, giving glimpses of what life was like in the Soviet Union through the lens of an American woman. This account is singular, among other aspects, because it portrays everyday life in the USSR and Russia over the timespan of four decades, through the eyes of a woman who started as a graduate student in Moscow State University and ended up as the wife of the American Ambassador to Russia.

Rather than retracing the economic and political events of the period, Collins focuses her narrative on daily life as it changed over the years. She offers fascinating anecdotal snapshots that reveal rare insight into the evolving state of the nation.

Naomi F. Collins is a writer and consultant to cultural and higher education organizations. She has served as Executive Director (and before that, Chair) of the Maryland Humanities Council, the Maryland affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and then as Executive Director of NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

Ambassador James Collins, a retired career member of the U.S. Foreign Service, served as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation from 1997 to 2001. Prior to that assignment he held positions as Ambassador-at-Large and Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for the New Independent States in the mid-1990s and as deputy chief of mission and charge d’affaires at the American Embassy, Moscow from 1990 to 1993.

Host Village: Northwest Neighbors Village
Limited to 100.
Registration is required by 9/10/2024
Zoom link will be sent to registrants after registration.