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St. Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia, is located at the Neva River Delta at the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland. It is Russias gateway to Europe. The city which had been the capital of Russia for two centuries during the rule of Tsars is still a political, economic and cultural centre of the country only next to Moscow, and the central city of the Russian northwestern region. St. Petersburg, with its satellite cities and suburbs, occupies an area of more than 1,300 square kilometres with a population of over 5.4 million and more than 4,000 industrial enterprises. With ship-building and power machinery forming its main manufacturing industries, the city also has developed chemical, textile, food and consumer goods industries. Being the largest port in Russia, St. Petersburg is a major hub of land, water and air communications with convenient urban transport. The ten trunk railway lines radiate from it to Helsinki, Warsaw, Moscow and other major Russian cities. The city consists of over 100 islands which are linked by more than 700 bridges. The number of rivers, islands and bridges in the city all tops the countrys list of them. This world-renowned historic city ranks the eighth on UNESCOs list of most popular tourism cities.

As friendship envoy of St. Petersburg, Governor Valentina Ivanovna Matvienko arrived in Qingdao by special plane on the morning of August 9 to pay a 5-hour brief visit to the city. As soon as she entered the Shangri-La Hotel, she went straight to the reception room to meet with Yan Qijun, member of the Standing Committee of the Shandong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and secretary of the Qingdao Municipal Committee of the CPC, and Xia Geng, mayor of Qingdao. The fact that Governor Matvienko did not take a minute of rest after the long journey moved the Chinese hosts. Secretary Yan Qijun extended warm welcome to the governor and her party and happily recalled his visit to St. Petersburg in July 2007 as the head of the Qingdao friendship delegation. He emphasized, Qingdao and St. Petersburg are highly complementary to each other and the two sides have broad prospects for cooperation. Qingdao is willing to strengthen cooperation and exchanges in many fields to achieve mutually beneficial results and common prosperity. Governor Matvienko said, after the signing of the agreement on the establishment of friendship-city relations between Qingdao and St. Petersburg and with the concerted efforts by all circles, gratifying progress has been made in the friendly relations between the two cities. St. Petersburg would like to further its exchanges and cooperation in the fields of finance, logistics, culture, education, tourism, etc. with Qingdao. After the meeting, Secretary Yan Qijun, Mayor Xia Geng and Governor Matvienko attended the signing ceremonies of the Memorandum of Understanding on Deepening Friendship-City and Trade Cooperation between the Qingdao Municipal Peoples Government and the St. Petersburg Municipal Government and the Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Cooperation between Hisense Group and St. Petersburg. The two sides reached consensus on setting up a representative office in each others city to promote practical economic and trade cooperation, enhance cultural and educational exchanges and deepening friendship-city relations, and agreed to hold relevant activities for the Russian Language Year in China and the Chinese Language Year in Russia.

On the same day, Governor Matvienko visited the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Centre and the Hisense Yandao International Apartments, and attended the foundation-laying ceremony of the St. Petersburg Plaza, at which she made a warm speech. These visits enabled the Russian guests to see Qingdaos effective preparation for the Olympic sailing events and its orderly organizational work and confirmed their confidence in cooperation with Hisense Group in building intelligent apartments.

Governor Matvienkos successful visit to Qingdao, the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on Deepening Friendship-City and Trade Cooperation and the foundation-laying of the St. Petersburg Plaza are rich fruits reaped at the first anniversary of the twinning of friendship ties between the two cities.

The brief visit of five hours by Governor Matvienko enabled us to feel the desire of Qingdao and St. Petersburg for increasing mutual trust, win-win results and strengthening practical cooperation. The Governor told us just before she boarded the plane: “Qingdao is very beautiful. The people of Qingdao are very nice. I will send First Deputy Governor Viktor Nikolaevich Lobko to Qingdao in September to implement the agreements and consensus reached between the two cities. I will be back next year.”