by Nadezhda Azhgikhina The past ten years, coinciding with democratic changes in Russia, brought to the world some brilliant creations by women writers. During Perestroika from the late eighties into the nineties, collections of women's prose appeared one after another with accompanying manifestos from authors and editors, while the literary periodicals carried on heated discussions about women's creativity.

by Nadezhda Azhgikhina In the early 1990s, Rita Beliakovskaia, head of the Women’s Division of the Russian Union of Cinematographers, invited me to take part in a symposium at an All-Russian Cinema Festival entitled Women’s World that was being held in the city of Naberezhnye Chelny. I admit to being torn. A recent fire at the local Kama Truck Manufacturing Plant had destroyed much of its manufacturing capability, people weren’t being paid, the stores were like vacant lots...

by Tatiana Kalinina In ancient China the most fearsome curse one could pronounce on someone was "May you live in a time of great change." And to be responsible for these changes was considered nothing less than divine retribution. Because even with the wisest measures, someone comes out the winner and someone the loser, who is simply not able to adjust to the new circumstances. And then heavenly thunder is called down upon the head of the change-maker.

by Tatiana Kalinina Summarizing the development of women's community groups in the Chelyabinsk region over the last decade of the 20th century The women's movement in Chelyabinsk region, as in all Russia, became more active in the mid-nineties, stimulated by preparations for the Beijing conference and subsequent efforts to implement its decisions.

A decade ago people in Eastern Europe and the USSR dreamed about freedom of speech - genuine freedom without the prohibitions of censorship and deleted paragraphs if not whole chapters from books and magazines, without "the word" from bosses on the presidium, without the crackle of radio-channel jamming so familiar to all who lived in the "cold war" era.

CHELYABINSK REGION PROFILE Some years ago the region unexpectedly became part of Russia's national frontier: the southeast side of Chelyabinsk now borders on the sovereign state of Kazakhstan. Some 3,680,000 people live in Chelyabinsk region, including 1,100,000 in the city of Chelyabinsk, which ranks eighth among major Russian cities. The region has 30 small cities and towns and 1257 rural settlements.

Dear Editors, Thanks you for the magazines, which we receive regularly and hope this will continue, as they are read with great interest in the Uzbek NGOs. As a resource center, we acquaint readers with the most recent issues of your magazine and send them to our organizational partners in other cities, along with our own materials, which we will also send to you.

by Nadezhda Azhgikhina Back in the 1970s, when Betty Friedan, Ann Snitow, and other like-minded women went out on a limb by suggesting that universities should offer courses focusing on the then-unusual subject of research into the lives of women, American academia was pretty blind-sided.

Writings about the women's movement in Cheliabinsk newspapers and magazines go back to the 1920's. What did newspapers of that time write about? In the eleventh issue of the journal The Ural Communist, an editorial written in 1927 on the situation of women and the status of women's self-awareness, states: "Despite the complete legal equality which the Soviet working woman enjoys, the female worker is on an inferior level both in cultural and material advantages.

by Nina Terentieva, deputy chair of the regional women's council Thirty-eight years have passed since I first became involved in the societal women's movement. With this experience I can freshly evaluate and more deeply understand the essence of the problems we face. We were all children once There were no boys in my family. The only man was my father, the head of the family.