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Lloydminster and Nikopol, Ukraine become sister cities

Sep 21, 2018 | 11:58 AM

Lloydminster and the city of Nikopol, Ukraine recently became sister cities.

The two cities signed an agreement that will allow them to share information on a variety of topics of mutual interest, including municipal government and infrastructure, among others.

Lloydminster Mayor Gerald Aalbers told battlefordsNOW  the city is excited to be part of the new agreement.

“The opportunities are endless,” Aalbers said. “Firstly, there’s always opportunity for economic development once you have a relationship, especially with someone from halfway around the world. Nikopol has industry, we found out there’s not as much oil and gas as we expected. Certainly, there’s industry there, so it will give us the opportunity for our local businesses to build those relationships.”

When asked about the future, and what this means for their economy, Aalbers was excited to see what could transpire from the agreement.

“We hope it will, but it will take time,” he said. “If you don’t have a relationship as business goes on and government to government, you don’t have a starting point.”

Nikopol is a city of just over 116,000 people in Ukraine, on the right bank of the Dneiper River. Lloydminster, by compairson, is considerably smaller and has a population of just under 28,000. Aalbers says the agreement encourages the growth of both communities.

“It’s a very open agreement in that it has no financial commitment to either city,” he said. “It encourages dialogue, communication, and working together,” he said. “Encouraging economic development, first of all, social and cultural, sharing, and certainly, we have a contingent of people with ancestry ties back to Ukraine in our community, much like many communities in Alberta and Saskatchewan.”

The mayor of Nikopol, Andriy Fisak, put pen to paper on September 10 in Lloydminster after touring the city.

“When mayor Fisak was here, he was very interested in our municipal government, the governance that goes on and how the process operates,” Aalbers said. “Ukraine is a fledging new democracy in essence, they’ve been governed by many other governments, but not in the democratic sense they have today. It’s a real interesting experience for us when they speak to us about their questions and concerns.”

Mayor Aalbers has been asked to go and visit Nikopol and see the other side of the sister cities’ agreement, and although it may not happen soon, that is the plan for their future for moving forward in the agreement.

“It won’t happen immediately,” he said. “But hopefully we can lead to some economic delegation that has got some potential to get some business there, and if they have already have business, maybe we can finalize those. A relationship is started and it takes two people to make that happen and our two cities are prepared to move forward on that.”

The announcement was widely celebrated by many in the Ukranian community, with Olesia Luciw-Andryjowycz, president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress-Alberta Provincial Council, stating “we are thrilled with the new twinning of the Ukrainian city of Nikopol with our own Alberta city of Lloydminster. Being the first Alberta city twinned with a city in Ukraine, this will be a great opportunity to develop trade and commerce between these two municipalities. UCC-APC looks forward to working cooperatively in a variety of sectors including education, arts and culture, economic cooperation and governance.”

 

brady.lang@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @BradyLangCJNB