The young Russians, aged between 14 and 17, are accommodated in host families with their peers in order to get to know the everyday life of young Germans. They spend their free time together. The stay is organized by the children, youth and family department and the city's town twinning department. The program for the visit includes an excursion to Berlin.

Günter Heinisch from the town twinning department welcomed the young Russians and Germans together with their supervisors in the council chamber of Salzgitter town hall. "You may be coming to another country", said Heinisch, "but you are coming home". The German delegations feel the same way when they are guests in Staryj Oskol. The town twinning, which has existed since 1987, has developed into a true German-Russian bridge of friendship. In particular, the civil dialog between the two cities has always functioned at a very good level.

This year alone is already the third group of young Russians to visit Salzgitter. He sees the fact that the Russian guests are accommodated in families here as a positive thing: "Nothing can be better than getting to know life in a German family and in a Russian family during a return visit."

Supervisor Aleksei Tsimmermann thanked the Salzgitter residents for their hospitality: "We feel at home here. We have come to our friends." Together with supervisor Elena Roshchupkina, he had brought gifts for the German supervisor Tamara Hagen and the supervisors Wolfgang Bednorz and Günter Heinisch. In keeping with the current soccer World Cup in Russia, the supervisors were first given Russian soccer fan headgear. There was also an illustrated book from the Staryj Oskols region and a bilingual book with poems and texts about the life of German-Russians in the former Soviet Union and today's Russia.