BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.1.7//EN TZID:America/Anchorage X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Anchorage BEGIN:VEVENT UID:249@alaskaworldaffairs.org DTSTART;TZID=America/Anchorage:20171201T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/Anchorage:20171201T130000 DTSTAMP:20231222T085927Z URL:https://alaskaworldaffairs.org/archived-events/ramseur-end-cold-war/ SUMMARY:Incredible Tales from Alaskans Who Helped End the Cold War || The Inside Story of Melting the Alaska-Russia Ice Curtain DESCRIPTION:Key players in melting the Alaska-Russia Ice Curtain in the mid -1980s discuss how Alaska helped end the Cold War\, launching a 30-year er a of productive commercial and personal relations across the Bering Strait .\nSpeakers at a glance - \nDavid Ramseur\, long-time Alaska journalist an d author of a new book\, Melting the Ice Curtain: The Extraordinary Story of Citizen Diplomacy on the Russia-Alaska Frontier\, moderates the panel d iscussion. His guests include:\n\nJim Stimpfle – a Nome realtor whose st ories of interactions with Russia through his Native wife’s family inspi red him to engage in “Balloon Diplomacy” and other efforts to open the Strait. Stimpfle has visited Russia many times and helped convince Nome m erchants to accept Russian rubles.\n\n \;\n\nDave Heatwole – a forme r Alaska oil company executive who caught the “Russia bug” through the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce and traveled numerous times to Russia as one of the few Alaska businessmen who were successful working there. Heat wole even met his wife working in Russia.\n\n\n\nElena Kostenko-Farkas - W est High School's Russian language teacher and founder of the Anchorage pu blic school Russian immersion program. Farkus moved to Alaska from Magadan \, Russia\, in 1992\, operated a Russian bookstore in Anchorage and promot es Russian cultural understanding.\n\n \;\n\n\n\nDavid Ramseur is a Vi siting Scholar in Public Policy at the Institute of Social and Economic Re search at the University of Alaska Anchorage and is the author of Melting the Ice Curtain: The Extraordinary Story of Citizen Diplomacy on the Russi a-Alaska Frontier\, telling the story of how inspiration\, courage\, and p ersistence by citizen-diplomats bridged a widening gap in superpower relat ions.\n\nA 36-year-Alaskan\, Ramseur just concluded six years as chief of staff to Alaska U.S. Senator Mark Begich where he managed the Senator’s Washington\, D.C. and Alaska offices and served as the top political and f oreign policy advisor to Senator Begich. Between 2003-08\, he was chief of staff to then Anchorage Mayor Begich. He also served Alaska Governors Ton y Knowles and Steve Cowper as chief of staff\, press secretary and foreign policy advisor.\n\nIn 1988\, Ramseur helped organize the “Friendship Fl ight” between Nome\, Alaska and Provideniya\, Russia\, which reunited in digenous families on both sides of the Bering Strait and helped launch nea rly two decades of commercial\, scientific and cultural activity between t he regions. He managed a $2 million federal grant for educational and scie ntific exchanges between Alaska and the Russian Far East at the University of Alaska’s American Russian Center in 1993-94 and worked in Nizhny-Nov gorod\, Russia as a volunteer media advisor in 1993.\n\nHe has traveled ex tensively in Russia\, Asia\, Europe and the Arctic. He holds a political s cience Bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina Asheville and a Master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri. He lives in Anchorage where he enjoys triathlon training and golf. He is married to Anchorage attorney Susan Wibker.\n\nBook: \n\nJust five years after a Sov iet missile blew a civilian airliner out of the sky over the North Pacific \, an Alaska Airlines jet braved Cold War tensions to fly into tomorrow. C rossing the Bering Strait between Alaska and the Russian Far East\, the 19 88 Friendship Flight reunited Native peoples of common languages and cultu res for the first time in four decades. It and other dramatic efforts to t haw what was known as the Ice Curtain launched a thirty-year era of perilo us\, yet prolific\, progress.\n\nMelting the Ice Curtain tells the story o f how inspiration\, courage\, and persistence by citizen-diplomats bridged a widening gap in superpower relations. David Ramseur was a first-hand wi tness to the danger and political intrigue\, having flown on that first Fr iendship Flight\, and having spent thirty years behind the scenes with som e of Alaska’s highest officials. As Alaska celebrates the 150th annivers ary of its purchase\, and as diplomatic ties with Russia become perilous\, Melting the Ice Curtain shows that history might hold the best lessons fo r restoring diplomacy between nuclear neighbors.\n\n\n\nPost Event Podcast \nIf you missed this engaging presentation you can now listen to the podca st of the event courtesy of Alaska Public Media. Happy listening!\n\nhttps ://www.alaskapublic.org/2018/02/16/incredible-tales-from-alaskans-who-help ed-end-the-cold-war/\n\n \; ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://alaskaworldaffairs.org/wp-content/upload s/2017/07/Ramseur_Melting-the-Ice-Curtain.jpg CATEGORIES:Global Conflict & Complexity LOCATION:49th State Brewing Company\, 717 W 3rd Ave\, Anchorage\, AK\, 9950 1\, United States GEO:61.21968289999999;-149.8958227 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=717 W 3rd Ave\, Anchorage\, AK\, 99501\, United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=49th State Brewing Company:geo:61.21968289999999,-149.8958227 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Anchorage X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Anchorage BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20171105T010000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0900 TZNAME:AKST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR