Deborah Levine
DL Opinion columns

Chattanooga’s Sister City in Ukraine – by Deborah Levine

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Much excitement at City Hall on March 6 when Mayor Tim Kelly announced that the City of Chattanooga and the Ukrainian City of Trostyanets have solidified their friendship with an official Sister Cities agreement. It was amazing to be present at this Zoom signing ceremony of the documents connecting Chattanooga and Trostyanets as official Sister Cities. 

Kelly later posted on Instagram. “We first began our partnership in 2023 with a cooperative agreement that created a volunteer-led working group to help collaborate with the war-torn city. Through this friendship, we were able to welcome Trostyanets’ Mayor Yuriy Bova to Chattanooga in 2024…” That’s when I had the opportunity to meet Mayor Bova in person. Speaking with Mayor Bova and his interpreter was a real pleasure. Yuriy and I became friends and after he returned home to Trostyanets, we did a podcast together. In January of this year, it was heartwarming to get an email from Yuriy asking to zoom together again so that he could catch me up on the latest happenings in Trostyanets. And we did!

I smile and do a little dance whenever I see the photo that Mayor Kelly posted of himself signing the declaration while surrounded by Chattanooga Sister City president, Karen Claypool and an exchange student from Trostyanets named Alina. I’m delighted to share Claypool’s words: “The Sister City Association of Chattanooga (SCA) is thrilled to have yet another sister city, this one in Ukraine. Trostyanets is near the Russian border and has sustained significant damage from the war, and part of our sister city friendship may well include helping them rebuild. In September 2024, Mayor Bova and his delegation came to Chattanooga. The SCA met with them on several occasions. There was good energy and we’ve made efforts to make our relationship official through Sister Cities International.” 

With the relationship becoming official, Yuriy emailed me: “For the Trostyanets community, partnership with Chattanooga is not just a gesture of solidarity. It is practical cooperation that should bring real results for both cities. We live and work under constant threat, so we have unique experience. We know how local government works during war, how infrastructure is rebuilt after destruction, and how a community stays strong and continues to develop even in a border region. We are ready to share this experience openly.

At the same time, it is important for us to learn from Chattanooga — a city with a strong economy, modern management approaches, and successful practices in urban development. The combination of these two realities — our resilience and your experience in sustainable development — creates the real value of this partnership. We see this cooperation not only as an exchange of ideas, but also as an exchange of practical solutions, contacts, and projects — between municipalities, schools, civil society organizations, and businesses. These direct connections between people make the partnership alive and long-lasting. For Trostyanets, this partnership is about support and trust. For Chattanooga, it is an opportunity to see what resilience looks like in real life. Together, it is a story of mutual benefit, not one-sided help.”

The daily news regarding Russia’s war against Ukraine is harsh. But there is optimism as expressed by Claypool: “We are excited about the future and sharing our culture with the citizens of Trostyanets and developing friendships. This will be different from some of our other sister city relationships because it will no doubt be a long time before we are able to visit our Ukrainian friends there. We hope, however, to get grants to allow them to come visit us or for us to meet them in a third country.” Let’s all hope…and help!

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