SPECIAL ISSUE OF NIVEAU BiZZ magazine euregioin cooperation with:

GRINSVENSKI@GORKIInteractive photo and video portraits of

Enterprising Russian and Dutch Ambassadorsby Guy van Grinsven with texts by Frans T. Stoks

©2013 Published by:

NIVEAU BiZZ magazine euregio

Molensingel 73

NL - 6229 PC Maastricht

T: +31(0)43 356 14 90

F: +31(0)43 356 00 84

info@niveaumagazine.nl

www.niveaumagazine.nl

All photographs © Guy van Grinsven

All the photos in whatever publication form they appear now or later (newspaper, magazine, tablet) have been edited with the unique Layar-technique, allowing owners of smartphones to view these videos on their phones, once they have downloaded the special free Layar app.

“Every picture tells a story,” as they say, but what is

unique about Guy Van Grinsven’s photos in his exhibition

GRINSVENSKI@GORKI, on display in Moscow’s Gorky

Park and later this year in the Kremlin in Nizhny Novgorod, is

that the people portrayed tell their own stories too. On these

live seize pictures, twenty people – ten from Russia working

and living in the Maastricht Region and twenty people born

and/or raised in Limburg working and living in Moscow or

Nizhny Novgorod – are being portrayed at the favorite site in

the city where they emigrated to, and all of them are holding

a real iPad in their hands. Visitors can trigger a short video

on these iPads, in which the portrayed will briefly talk about

the location where they were photographed, their motives

to settle in Russia or the Netherlands, and about their lives,

loves, desires and longings.

What is interesting about Guy Van Grinsven’s interactive

photo and video project is that all the participants – whether

they are students, teachers of music, academics, successful

business men, or children of mixed Russian-Dutch families –

proclaim to have found their place in the new country of their

own choice. They have not yet lost the look of surprise in

their eyes when they notice how certain things are different

from what they remember from their youth in their native

country, but at the same time they openheartedly talk about

the “otherness” of their new environment without hesitating

to mention the things they miss most: quite ordinary local

dishes like frikadel or pelmeni, or road facilities for bicyclists.

Remarkable, however, is how similar the desires and emotions

of the Russian and Dutch participants are. Or maybe that is not

remarkable at all, for after all they are just people like you and

me, captured in a unique composition. And that is the artistic

greatness of these photos.

With his exhibition GRINSVENSKI@GORKI prize winning

photographer Guy Van Grinsven cleverly shows how people

can bridge distances, even between immense nations such as

Russia and the tiny Netherlands, by giving these people both a

face and a voice. In that sense this photo and video exhibition

is a exemplary contribution of the City of Maastricht to the

Dutch-Russian Bilateral Year 2013.

Frans T. Stoks

Introduction

Some people are surprised, some even get angry when they

find out that the hero of their youth, famous Musketeer

D’Artagnan, was killed near one of Maastricht’s city gates on

June 15th 1673. Alexandre Dumas’s hero is well known among

Russians, for his life was taught in nearly all schools in the

former Soviet Union.

On the picture, we see piano teacher and performer Anastasia

Safonova, playing an imaginary piano next to a huge statue

of D’Artagnan in Maastricht’s Aldenhof Park. Anastasia was

born in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia’s third city, 4,000 kilometers east

of Moscow, on the Yenesei river. She grew up in Moscow,

where she began to study music at the age of four, having her

successful début performance of Mendelssohn piano concerto

eight years later.

To Maastricht she came at the invitation of an English teacher,

who asked her to participate in an international master class at

the city’s Conservatory.

Anastasia loves to come to this place in the park when she is

preparing herself for a piano performance and needs to get

inspired. She has been a piano teacher at the nearby Maastricht

Conservatory since 2000, has been performing all over Europe

and made various recordings for public TV and radio stations.

What she likes best in Maastricht is the city’s combination of

concrete history, exuberant conviviality and an open academic

atmosphere. In Maastricht, Anastasia has found her second

home, without losing her first, as she puts it herself.

Most surprising to her is that in Maastricht she made

acquaintance with prominent Russian musicians she would not

have met had she stayed in Russia. However, she plans to pay at

least one visit per year to Moscow, which just is a more dynamic

metropolis than small town but cozy Maastricht. By now, she

has taken numerous Dutch musicians on tour through Russia,

and they all have become enthusiastic fans of Russia.

Incidentally, the D’Artagnan statue was made by Russian master

sculptor Alexander Taratynov, who lives both in Maastricht and

Moscow and is known for his bronze-cast representation of

Rembrandt’s Night Watch among others. D’Artagnans head is

modelled on the basis of a photo Guy Van Grinsven made of a

still living descendant of the historical D’Artagnan.

Anastasia Alexandrovna SafonovaFinding her second home, without losing her first

Most people are extremely annoyed when, after a strenuous

flight, they arrive at an airport and are faced with long queues at

the customs. When in 1999, Theodorus P.M. Schreurs arrived

in Moscow for the first time he was confronted with these

queues and was probably the only passenger who rubbed his

hands. He saw chances and challenges. After all, he was a crisis

manger by profession. Two years later, he founded The Noble

House, an enterprise specialized in helping foreign businesses

to develop successfully in Russia, being expert in finance,

taxation, sales, import, transport, and warehouse logistics,

legal and HR services, IT support, and Certification. By 2013,

The Noble House is employing thirty people.

Theodorus Pierrovich Schreurs was born in Venlo-Blerick, the

third biggest city of the Limburg province, on the river Meuse,

close to the German border. For him, Moscow was back then

and still is an exciting metropolis where he is doing business

in exciting times. That is why he chose to be photographed

on Moscow’s Red Square, with the famous Saint Basil’s

Cathedral in the background. In his left hand, he holds a well-

thumbed copy of The Noble House, a novel written in 1981 by

James Clavell and set in the financial world of Hong Kong in

1963. Interesting times, interesting place, like Moscow in the

21st Century. The novel was the inspiration for the name of

Theodorus’s enterprise.

The Limburg business man feels perfectly at home in the

dynamic Russian capital, an art and museum lover’s paradise

which, like New York, is a city that never sleeps. Over the years

in Russia, Theodorus had come to deeply respect the people

of this immense country. He greatly admires the sacrifices and

achievements of the Russian people over the last twenty years,

since the early days of perestroika. People in the West tend to

forget these things and should pay less attention to negative

trifles.

Theodorus P.M. SchreursProblems are challenges to be solved

“Two religions on one pillow, there the Devil sleeps in

between.” This old-fashioned Dutch saying suggests that a

marriage of two people with different religious backgrounds

will not last. However, the moral of the saying did not last

either, for religious diversity and tolerance are what Moscow

born Dmitri Boutylkov likes best about Maastricht. Being

the president of a foundation promoting the advancement of

Jewish cultural heritage in the Maastricht Region he chose

Maastricht’s main square, the Vrijthof, for his picture to be

taken. He is standing next to a statue, representing cheerful

people celebrating carnival by holding each other’s hands.

“Behind me there are both the Catholic Basilica of Saint

Servatius and the Protestant Saint John’s Church,” says Dmitri.

Only a small alley, ironically called Purgatory, lies in between.

One of the huge bronze gates in the Servatius Basilica was

made by one of Dmitri’s friends, Maastricht sculptor Appie

Drielsma, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, who incorporated the

names of his murdered relatives in the gate. For Dmitri, who

came to Maastricht 22 years ago, these religions linking up with

each other perfectly symbolize the tolerance and diversity of

Maastricht, a very European city of not only many religions but

also many languages, with Russian on the rise.

Dmitri is a staunch promoter of a unique project, initiated

by the German artist Gunter Demnich, to keep the memory

alive of the victims of National Socialism by installing

commemorative brass plaques in the pavement in front of their

last address of choice. There are now over 30,000 Stolpersteine

(lit. ‘Stumbling Stones’) all over Europe and, thanks to Dmitri

and his foundation, also in Maastricht. In 2012, the first one was

installed in front of a bookshop in an 800-year-old church that,

according to the British newspaper The Guardian, is ‘the most

beautiful bookshop of all time’.

It is not hard to understand why Dmitri feels at home in

Maastricht.

Dmitri Alexandrovich BoutylkovPromoter of tolerance and diversity

At the age of twelve, Maastricht born Pim Nikolayevich

Bemelmans was convinced that he was to become an

interpreter-translator of Russian. After all, there were

numerous job opportunities in Holland’s most European

city Maastricht and the (then called) European Economic

Community in nearby Brussels. He became fluent in Russian,

but his professional career would strike out on a different

course. After additional economic and marketing studies, he

took an MBA degree at the Antwerp Management School,

had various managerial functions in aluminum and live stock

companies and has been living in Moscow now for the past

seven years.

During the roaring Russian nineties, Pim even contemplated

setting up a chain of Starbucks-like coffeeshops in Russia, but

fate decided otherwise, partly because supporting companies

shied away from doing business in booming, unknown,

adventurous Russia. But Pim seemed to have found his destiny

in Russia. He loves the country’s dynamics, its paradoxes and

everything why Russia and the Russian way of life cannot be

understood with ordinary western common sense.

However, whenever he pays a visit to his native town, he will

go for a beer and a good old unnesop (onion soup) at the Onze

Lieve Vrouweplein (Our Lady’s Square). He simply loves it’s

unique atmosphere, the friendly people he can talk to in his

own dialect and the epicurean life style. ‘With all their money,

all the Russian oligarchs cannot buy that atmosphere. It is

between the ears and not to be found in a wallet.’

Pim is standing on the Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge (Big Stone

Bridge) over the Moskva, the river that runs through the very

heart of Moscow, the Kremlin right behind him. In his hands, he

holds a windshield, symbolizing the Carglass company, which

he started as a wild MBA project and side job almost four years

ago, and for which he has been working in Russia now for two

and half years as a Sales and Marketing Director. This is the

favorite spot for all TV news reporters in Moscow for an on-

camera standup. They usually report on world politics. Pim just

kindly invites you to come to Russia and taste its many facets

for yourself.

Pim Nikolayevich BemelmansAn interpreter-translator going into Russian business

Love of music and more specifically love of the guitar made

Vladimir Kirasov come to Maastricht. Along with his partner

in life, Evgenia Markova, who plays the domra (a traditional

Russian string instrument), he plays musical compositions from

Béla Bartók, Manuel de Falla, Johann Sebastian Bach, Maurice

Ravel and Rumanian Folk dances, to contemporary music by

Ástor Piazzolla and Alfred Schnittke.

During the photo shoot Vladimir preferred to have his guitar talk

for him rather than talk too much himself. He is photographed in

het lime stone caves near Maastricht, a labyrinth of thousands

of tunnels, carved out by miners during the past centuries. They

sawed the characteristic yellowish blocks out of the mines so

that they could be used in the construction of buildings such as

houses, churches and schools. You can still see these buildings

all over the Maastricht Region.

Behind Vladimir there is peeping Siri, the photographer’s

husky dog, symbolizing Vladimir’s roots: his parents originate

from far away Siberia – his father from Novosibirsk, his mother

from Novokuznetsk –, a place and climate where Siri feels quite

at home.

Before coming to Maastricht, Vladimir was a graduate of the

Saint Petersburg Conservatory. In 2013, he graduated from

the Maastricht Conservatory. Nowadays he makes a living

in and around the Limburg capital by teaching others to play

guitar and by staging various concerts, both as a solo artist and

with his partner Evgenia. Having won various regional and

international competitions, he also performs regularly in Saint-

Petersburg as well as in other European cities.

Vladimir Igoryevich Kirasirov‘While my guitar gently speaks’

Not only world famous opera diva Anna Netrebko was born in

the southern Russian city of Krasnodar but also Darya Severina.

Krasnodar, meaning literally ‘Red Gift’, is a city of 700,000

inhabitants, on the river Kuban and roughly 1,500 kilometers to

the southeast of Moscow, near the east coast of the Black Sea

and, by Russian standards, near the Olympic city of Sochi.

A few years ago, Darya went on a holiday to nearby – again

by Russian standards – Turkey, where she met a handsome

Dutch man. “It was love at first sight,” she remembers. One

year after they met, Darya moved to the Netherlands, where

she eventually found a job, working as a treasury analyst for

of Sabic, one of the world’s top six petrochemical companies

and the largest non-oil company in the Middle East. Darya is

working in a modern office in Sittard, a city just 25 kilometers

north of Maastricht.

Coming from southern Russia, Darya was attracted by the

borderless environment in the Maastricht Region. That is why

she chose to have her photograph taken right at the Belgian-

Dutch border in Eijsden, a friendly historic village on the river

Meuse, just south of Maastricht. During the First World War

a high voltage electric fence prevented refugees from war-

stricken Belgium to flee across the border into the neutral

Netherlands. Now, with peaceful Belgium on the opposite

border of the river and with only an iron post to mark the exact

border, Darya celebrates the borderless possibilities of life

in the Maastricht Region by lighting a table lamp on the old

border post, making her feel even more at home.

Darya Vadimovna SeverinaLighting a table lamp on an old border post

David Kirovich Kaik was born in Komsomolsk-na-Amure, a

city of over 200,00 inhabitants in the Russian Far East, near

the Chinese border. His ancestors from both sides originally

came from Germany but moved to Russia somewhere in the

18th century. He was raised in his hometown, moved to St

Petersburg in 2011 and has been living in Maastricht since 2012.

“I’ve come to Maastricht mostly because of the university and

I just wanted to study abroad as it seemed a good idea. Until

now, I have not regretted that decision. I am enjoying the city’s

international atmosphere (especially at the Faculty of Arts and

Social Sciences of Maastricht University where I study). Here,

you meet people from all over the world and I have made some

really great friends. And cycling I find just fascinating. I have

been to Belgium a few times on a bike.”

While in Maastricht, David does not really miss Russia that

much. Naturally, it was nice to be back in St Petersburg and

see his Mom and friends for the New Year, but frankly those

two weeks were enough for him to start getting bored and

missing Maastricht. And he was disappointed to notice how

many people in Russia still do not speak English, says young

David from the Russian Far East with an almost perfect British

accent! On the other hand, when in Maastricht he misses

Russia’s cheap cigarettes and vodka. And he never forgets

about Russia due to his friend’s obsession with Russian dolls

(матрёшки/matryoshkas), the ones people in the Netherlands

call ‘бабушки/babushkas’, which does not make any sense to

David.

There is one other thing that would make David feel even more

comfortable in Maastricht. He truly hopes that the university

will stop making a distinction between EU students and non-

EU students, so that he would not have to pay five times as

much for his program. Moreover, David is convinced that

student exchange programs would make a great difference in

Russian-Dutch relationships. Young adults should learn about

other cultures, traditions, languages perhaps, and that would

definitely make us all friends. “Be friendly, that is my advice,”

says David.

David Kirovich Kaik‘Learn about each others cultures and be friendly’

The view from the room in his Moscow based office is both

magnificent and highly symbolic. Leaning out of the window,

Maastricht-born John Bèrovich Habets looks at the back of a famous

statue of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin near Metro station Oktyabr’skaya,

the square where the old communist hands will rally to pay tribute

to their great leader or vent their anger at his successors. On top of a

stone column, the great Russian revolutionary is showing the way to

a bright communist future to a pack of soldiers, farmers and workers

gathered at his feet. At least, that is what the sculptor had in mind

when he made the statue. Today, they are looking at 21st Century

reality: super cars driving nose to tail, when not stuck in traffic jams,

on Prospekt Leninskiy, one of Moscow’s busiest highways. They

are heading for New Moscow, the business center of Europe’s most

capitalistic city where state-of-the art glass and steel office and

residential skyscrapers shoot up like mushrooms. A future Lenin,

who looks on without batting an eyelid, surely did not foresee.

John, by contrast, looks out of his office window at TGC Group of

Companies with beaming eyes and great enthusiasm and optimism.

The Russian company he works for as a Technical Director is

specialized in the development and construction of logistic parks

and warehouses, among others. John has been working as a technical

director for Eurasian Real Estate in international projects for years

and travelled and worked all over the world, from China to Oman,

from the Czech Republic to Russia. The last seven years he has been

active in Moscow, and since one year and a half he has been living in

the Russian capital permanently. Meaning, from Monday to Friday.

John never tires of talking about recent developments in Moscow,

offering great challenges to Russians and non-Russians. Like

anything in Russia, the scale and scope of the projects are immense

and much bigger than elsewhere, making them all the more

interesting and exciting. The road infrastructure has improved

tremendously, and flight handlings have become much more

smoother.

Although he feels quite at home in Moscow and loves his work here,

as a true family man he is always glad to go home for the weekend to

his wife and children in Maastricht, taking his dog Luna for a walk and

training in the Savelsbos nearby, finishing one final reconstruction

of his house or joining his son-in-law for a tour on their shining

motorbikes. In each and every employment contract John signed

over the past years a clause was inserted allowing John to celebrate

carnival in his native town of Maastricht. And he intends not to miss

any edition of Maastricht’s most popular feast in the future.

Nonetheless, he invites everybody to come to Moscow and see the

incredible changes and dynamics of this great city for him- or herself.

John Bèrovich HabetsA room with a view

Ekaterina Muravyeva was born in Nizhny Novgorod, a city of

1.5 million inhabitants just over 400 kilometers east of Moscow.

There, she grew up and went to study at the Nizhny Novgorod

State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering

(NNGASU), International Institute of Economics, Law and

Management (MIEPM), specializing in international private

law. It was during her study that, for the first time, she heard

the name ‘Maastricht’, more specifically the Maastricht Treaty

of 1992, establishing the European Union and leading to the

creation of a single European currency, the euro.

The Nizhny Novgorod University has been working together

with Zuyd University in Limburg, allowing many students and

lecturers to come and study or teach in Maastricht or Nizhny

Novgorod. Ekaterina was one of them. In 2008, she got an

internship at a Maastricht legal office, and she has enjoyed living

in Maastricht ever since. There, she had her first impressions

and experiences with Dutch people who, in her opinion, seem

to favor a culture of discussions and careful considerations. She

now works at the Regional Center of Expertise on Education

for Sustainable Development (RCE Rhine-Meuse), operating

from the oldest learning center in Europe, the 900 year old

Rolduc Abbey in Kerkrade.

The place she choose to have her picture taken has changed

drastically since the days of her internship. Today, construction

workers are digging a unique highway tunnel, 2.3 kilometers

long and containing two stories of each two tubes, right

through the heart of the city of Maastricht. The building site

slightly blocks the view Ekaterina used to have from her office

back in 2008.

Ekaterina is standing in front of a group of statues, symbolizing

the liberation of Maastricht from Nazi terror in September

1944. It was made by Limburg sculptor Charles Eyck. Since

sustainability plays an important role in the cooperation of

the Russian and Limburg universities, photographer Guy

Van Grinsven had a small windmill placed next to Ekaterina,

producing enough electricity to illuminate the light bulb she is

holding.

“I really enjoy working and living in the Netherlands,” she

says, “but what I have been missing is traditional Russian

food. Pelmeni (stuffed dumplings), blini (thin pancakes) and

a traditional Russian table loaded with food when somebody

comes to visit.”

Ekaterina Vladimirovna MuravyevaSustainable exchange

For more than twenty years, Dutch-born Gerard Uijtendaal

has been helping multinational companies doing business in

Russia, and training and coaching Russian managers to operate

in multi-cultural teams. Privately, Gerard has accommodated

himself to the Russian way of life, proof of which is his

conversion to the Russian Orthodox faith when he married his

Russian wife.

Gerard is being photographed in what he himself calls “my back

garden in the city where I feel at home”. He is standing in a park

along the river Moskva in the Yakimanka district in the heart

of Moscow where he takes his little dog called Jochie (literally:

‘little kid’) for a walk every day. In the background, the splendid

gold cupola of the restored Cathedral of Christ the Saviour can

be seen, the “Saint Peter of Russian Orthodox faith”.

But what strikes most is, of course, the 45 meters high statue of

Czar Peter the Great in the middle of the river Moskva. In his

hands, Gerard is holding his little dog, forming a nice contrast to

the controversial statue by Georgian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli.

“Russia would not be Russia if things were actually what you

see,” says Gerard. According to him, the statue is representing

a proud Christopher Columbus on a Spanish galleon, looking

for new land and bringing law and order in a charter he is

holding in his hand. It was intended as a gift from Russia to the

United States, commemorating the discovery of America five

hundred years ago. However, all the chosen cities in America

kindly declined the offer, leaving Moscow with the statue in

the city’s own heart, be it with a slight amendment: Columbus’

head was replaced by one representing Czar Peter the Great.

Indeed: things are not always what they appear to be in Russia.

Still, Gerard has a tender spot for Peter the Great: as a trainer

he admires the historic figure who, like no other Russian, stands

for knowledge transfer, and that is, in the end, Gerard’s core

business. And he likes living in Russia: “In the Netherlands,

things work, but nothing happens. In Russia, nothing works

but all kinds of things happen!”

Gerardus Gerardovich Uijtendaal‘Things are not always what they appear to be’

Fatima Magmutova was born and grew up as a citizen of the

Soviet Union in the Ukrainian city of Charkiv. Maybe the

fact that she is a Ukrainian by birth inspired her to have her

photograph taken on the very border of two countries. After

all, etymologically ‘Ukraine’ means ‘At the border’.

For the past seventeen years, Fatima has been living in

Maastricht, the city she has come to love so much that whenever

she is elsewhere, she very quickly becomes homesick for her

favorite city on the borders of the river Meuse.

Fatima studied construction and architecture in Charkiv before

she came to the Netherlands. Here she successfully raised

two children, and became a building advisor, working for the

Heerlen municipality.

Her love for construction is being symbolized by the

construction helmet in the grass. Her other great passion is the

making of puppets.

Fatima is lying in the lush spring grass of the Jeker valley, the

small river originating in Belgium and joining the river Meuse in

the heart of Maastricht. The Dutch-Belgium border – nothing

more than just an imaginary line – runs straight through her

body, her head being in one country (Belgium), her feet in

another (the Netherlands).

In the background, Château Neercanne can be seen, Holland’s

only terraced castle, famous for its international visitors during

European summits like François Mitterrand and Helmut

Kohl. The castle was built in 1698 by the Military Governor

of Maastricht, baron Daniël Wolf van Dopff, who used the

castle as a country estate and guest accommodation, and also

held receptions and feasts. One of its most remarkable visitors

was Czar Peter the Great, who spent the night here while on

visit in Maastricht in 1717. He was particularly interested in the

terraced gardens.

Peter the Great’s connection with Maastricht makes Fatima

love Maastricht even more.

Fatima Gaziyevna MagmutovaA border running through her body

‘Holding a chair’ is what a university professor is required to

do. Joseph (‘Jo’) Spaubeck, a true son of the city of Kerkrade,

Limburg’s musical stronghold near Maastricht, holds a chair

in the strategic marketing and management department at the

Nizhny Novgorod State University of Architecture and Civil

Engineering (NNGASU), one of the leading universities of

Russia, just over 400 kilometers east of Moscow. With over

23,000 students it employs more than 1,000 faculty members

and researchers.

On the picture, Jo is trying to ignore the possibility of his chair

sliding down the steep hill in Nizhny Novgorod on which once

the city’s Kremlin was strategically built.

Jo has been working in Nizhny Novgorod since 1995, but he

still holds various positions in the Netherlands – lecturing as

a senior expert at Zuyd University and as a senior expert for

PUM, an organization connecting entrepreneurs in developing

countries and emerging markets with senior experts from the

Netherlands. In Nizhny Novgorod, he has been a member

of the management team of the International Institute of

Economics, Law and Management (MIEPM), a structural unit

of the Nizhny Novgorod University.

Behind Jo, the river Oka can be seen, flowing out into the

mother of all Russian rivers, the Wolga. Jo is comparing –

tongue in cheek – the confluence of Oka and Wolga in Nizhny

Novgorod to the Jeker river in Maastricht, flowing out into

the river Meuse in the very heart of the Limburg capital. A

comparison which naturally hardly holds water, considering

the size of these rivers, but this is what usually happens when

(big and mighty) things Russian are compared to (small and

tiny) things Dutch.

Over the years, Jo has conceived a great passion for Russia and

all these big and mighty things Russian, without forgetting his

Limburg roots. He is still president of the Royal Wind Band St

Philomena in his native village Chevremont, he has worked for

25 years as a volunteer committee member at the World Music

Contest in Kerkrade, and he is a staunch supporter of local

football club Roda JC. But nowadays he also feels quite at home

in Nizhny Novgorod, as is apparent by the relaxed way he tries

to sit in the leather chair and the big smiles on his face.

Jo Martinovich SpaubeckThe good-humoured strategic professor

Many cities were built along rivers, such as Maastricht and

Moscow. They say it is good for trade, because bridges connect

people. And that is even true at five o’clock in the morning. Just

ask Moscow-born Goulnara Khissamoutdinova. Right in the

middle of the old stone Saint Servatius Bridge over the Meuse

river, she met, one early morning, her future husband Niels.

Goulnara, who grew up in Moscow, went to live in Maastricht

because her parents, sales representatives for a French food

processing firm, were looking for a centrally located place

to operate from. After a look on the map of Europe and

considering the educational possibilities for their daughter,

they quickly concluded that Maastricht was the best place to

settle. And so they did.

Goulnara recently worked in sales in Maastricht and Kerkrade

but is currently fully occupied with raising her two beautiful

children. In Maastricht, Goulnara appreciates the fact that it is a

well-organized, old historic city, with a lot of brimming energy.

She explicitly mentions The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF,

the world’s biggest art trading fair, held every year in March),

the July concerts by Maastricht’s most famous son André Rieu

and, of course, the city’s unrivalled carnival.

Most of Goulnara’s Moscow friends like to come to Europe

on a holiday but, according to Goulnara, they do not want to

live here, because they are too chauvinistic. Ironically, she

finds the same feeling to be a dominant characteristic of many

inhabitants of Maastricht!

Goulnara is proud of Maastricht, the city where, according to

her, Europe was more or less born. What she misses, though, is

a good girls’ talk around a well laid kitchen table. In Maastricht

the talking (and gossiping) is done in the city’s numerous pubs,

but there is something to be said for that too! And she would

like to have more Russian related exhibitions (like the one

in the Maastricht Bonnefanten Museaum in 2013 about the

revolutionary changes in Russian painting two decades before

the Russian Revolution), ballet and musical productions,

especially pop concerts for young people.

Goulnara cannot but love Maastricht. Who would not, having

met one’s future husband on an old stone bridge at five o’clock

in the morning!

Goulnara Rinatovna KhissamoutdinovaA meeting on a stone bridge at five o’clock in the morning

Roeland Van Gestel received his Master of Business Economics

from the University of Groningen, Netherlands. In 1994,

Tebodin Consultants & Engineers, recognizing the need for

advisory services in Eastern Europe after the breakup of the

Soviet Union, sent him to Moscow to set up a Russian branch

office. In 1997 Van Gestel moved to Samara to become CFO

of a US-Russian joint venture in the optical cable industry. In

2003, he was appointed General Manager at Lear in Nizhny

Novgorod. Eight years later, he moved to Bosal, also a global

automotive supplier.

Roeland has a Russian wife and two sons, Danil and Felix, who

appear in this exhibition in a separate picture.

Roeland is well integrated into Russian life and business. Proof

of that is not only his fluency in Russian and the various top

management posts he has held in Russia, but also his election,

in 2010, as the President of the International Community

Association of Nizhny Novgorod (ICANN), a club of business

people working for foreign organizations in the region.

ICANN offers its 45 member firms a platform for networking

and lobbying their interests in local government circles.

Roeland’s picture was taken by Guy Van Grinsven on a

sunny Sunday afternoon in early June in the heart of Nizhny

Novgorod, in the city’s Kremlin. Quite a few historic Russian

cities were built around a kremlin, a major fortified central

complex, that later became a walled city within the city. The

Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, dominating both the old town of

Nizhny Novgorod and the confluence of the rivers Oka and

Wolga, dates back to the sixteenth century.

What startled Van Gestel in his early years in Russia is that

Western European countries were generally referred to as

“Europe”, regardless of all the differences between them. A

Dutchman working for a Dutch company would be taken aback

when asked about some business or political event in “Europe”

when really it took place in Spain or Austria. Interestingly,

twenty years later EU citizens live and work everywhere and

people refer to European companies as opposed to American,

or Chinese companies. European states are becoming a true

union. So ironically, Russians have gradually become right in

addressing all countries west of Belarus under one common

denominator: Europe.

Roeland Kristorovich van GestelPresident of entrepreneurs

Hilde van der Sterren belongs to a steadily growing group of

highly mobile people who take up residence in one place on the

earth, and move on to another a couple of years later. Hilde’s

husband is sent all over the world to work for and represent a

multinational company. Partners of these cosmopolitans are

highly challenged to organize again and again their lives in a

new surrounding.

Hilde van der Sterren, who used to work as an air hostess,

knows her way around in the world and studied art history at

Leiden University, has greatly taken up that challenge. With

her husband and kids, she lived for a couple of years in Borneo

(Malaysia) and Oman, among others. In 2009, she decided to

start her own photography business, something you can run

more practically nowadays, thanks to the internet, making

it less dependent on a fixed place of residence. Hilde herself

specializes in making photo reports of children, marriages

and family occasions and is improving herself constantly by

attending workshops by master photographers.

In early 2012, Hilde and her family moved to Moscow.

Of course, Hilde wanted her picture to be taken while

performing as a photographer. She choose Moscow’s fanciest

and biggest warehouse Gum right on Red Square. In the

weekends, dozens of newly-weds have their wedding pictures

taken right in the heart of Gum, as long as security will allow it.

Over the past months, Hilde, who regularly visits Maastricht,

has come to like Moscow, enjoying the city’s location on the

river Moskva, just like Maastricht on the river Meuse, and

with her keen photographic eye she even notices interesting

similarities in the buildings in both cities.

What she misses most in Moscow – betraying her unmistakable

Dutch roots – is the possibility of moving around in the city on

a bicycle. Despite the broad boulevards, there are no special

facilities for bikers in Moscow, and given the style of driving

of most Muscovites and the intensity of the city’s traffic, it is

best for her and her family that she sticks to cycling outside of

the Russian capital.

Hilde Jankovka van der SterrenPicture of a photographer

Maastricht-born Sjeng Scheijen studied Slavic Languages at

Leiden University and specialized in fin-de-siècle and early

modern Russian art. In 2008 and 2009, he served as cultural

attaché at the Netherlands Embassy in Moscow. He is advisor

to various cultural institutions and the Dutch Government on

Russian Art and Russian-European Cultural politics. In 2009,

he received international acclaim for Diaghilev. A Life, his

outstanding biography of ballet impresario and choreographer

Sergei Diaghilev, which was translated in various languages.

In December 2011, Scheijen was appointed artistic director of

the Dutch-Russian Bilateral Year 2013. In early 2013, he briefly

returned to Maastricht, curating a highly praised exhibition

of Russian early Avant-Garde Art, called The Big Change, for

the Maastricht Bonnefanten Museum, featuring nearly ninety

paintings by almost thirty, sometimes very different artists,

who were active in the two decades prior to the Russian

Revolution of 1917. In half a year, the exhibition drew more than

70,000 visitors.

Currently, Sjeng Scheijen is working in Moscow on a new

project on the causes and consequences of the bloom and

fall of Russian modernist art in favor of government-imposed

socialist realism.

Sjeng is photographed on a platform of the Mayakovsky Metro

Station, considered to be one of the most beautiful stations in

the world. Sjeng wishes to express both his love of Moscow

– “Europe’s most dynamic city, full of mysteries, with a

fascinating nightlife, and a fascinating daylife as well” – and his

love of Russian “futuristic” art with his unwavering admiration

for Vladimir Mayakovsky. In Sjeng’s own words, betraying the

biographer he is, Mayakovsky was “a great, highly tormented

and tragic figure, one of the greatest poet of the 20th Century

who, in a sense, was ruined by that new Soviet society”.

Sjeng appreciates life in Moscow very much and regrets that he

will return to the Netherlands soon. But until then, his daughter

goes to the Russian kindergarten (detsky sad), where she eats,

sleeps and makes easily friends with her Russian peers.

Sjeng Sjengovich ScheijenLove of Russian Avant-Garde Art

It was during a business trip to Eastern Berlin in 1989 that

Tatyana Sokolovskaya met her future Dutch husband, an

event that would change her life as radically as the fall of the

Wall in that German city would change Europe. Tatyana had

been studying foreign languages at Moscow University and

had found a job as a teacher and interpreter of German in the

Russian capital. In august 1994, she initially moved to Belgium,

and later went to live in Maastricht, where she has been

working ever since as a sworn translator and an interpreter of

German and Russian. Having followed various courses in the

history of Maastricht, she is now also a certified tourist guide in

the historic city she has come to love so dearly.

When Russians come to visit Maastricht, she never fails to

show them the impressive 17th Century Town Hall on the

Market Square. On the iPad she is holding a book, recently

published by Professor Emmanuel Waegemans, about Peter

the Great’s visit to the Low Countries. During his second trip to

the West, the Russian Czar visited Maastricht. The small tower

on top op the Town Hall made such an impression on him that

he had a copy made for the Trinity-Sergius Monastery (Troitse-

Sergiyeva Lawra) near Moscow. Tatyana is very proud of the

personal dedication in her copy of the professor’s book: ‘To

Tatyana Sokolovskaya, resident of Maastricht, the city Peter

the Great liked so much.’ To which she wishes to add: ‘The city

that I like too very much!’

On the photo, Tatyana is holding a torch, a reference to one of

Maastricht’s finest sons, Jan Pieter Minckelers, the inventor of

illuminating gas.

With her Russian roots, her Dutch husband, her son married to

a French speaking Belgian woman and working in Luxemburg,

and her mother living in Germany and speaking Russian

and German, she truly embodies Maastricht’s international

character.

Tatyana Jurevna SokolovskayaSame preference as Peter the Great

Apart from portraits of Russian and Dutch business men,

musicians, students and teachers, there are also two slightly

different pictures included in this photo and video exhibition,

intended to illustrate and symbolize the ties between Nizhny

Novgorod and Maastricht. They are two portraits of two

young brothers, one taken in Nizhny Novgorod, the other

in Maastricht. The connection between them is not only that

both boy couples have a Russian mother and a Dutch father, but

also a common godfather, Professor Joseph (‘Jo’) Spaubeck,

who meets them regularly when Jo is teaching either in Nizhny

Novgorod or in Maastricht.

Danil (right) and Felix are the sons of Roeland Van Gestel, who

features in a portrait of his own; Stan and Nieck (next page) are

the sons of Bert Schroën, who is the Director Faculty of Bèta

Sciences and Technology at Zuyd University.

The similarities between both pictures are, of course,

intentional. Not only did Guy Van Grinsven have the boys

positioned in more or less the same way, but there is also a

special relation to the location where the pictures were taken.

In Nizhny Novgorod, Felix and Danil are sitting on a bench in

front of a statue of famous Russian writer, literary critic and

journalist Nikolay Dobrolyubov, who was born in Nizhny

Novgorod in 1836. The statue is located on the corner of

ploshchad’ Teatralnaya and ulitsa Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, next

to the Academic Drama Theatre, in the very heart of Nizhny

Novgorod.

The picture of Stan and Nieck was taken in the very heart of

Maastricht, on Grote Looiersstraat, in front of the statue of

one of Maastricht’s most famous and beloved sons, Alphons

Olterdissen (1865–1923). As an unsuccessful business man he

started writing, in Maastrichtian dialect, popular plays and

musical comedies in order to pay off his debts. The final stanza

of his opera Trijn de Begijn eventually became the local anthem

of Maastricht.

Both Danil and Felix, and Stan and Nieck are true children of

the 21st Century, growing up bilingually (at least!) – speaking

Russian with their mothers and Dutch with their fathers.

And sometimes, for instance when they are talking with each

other or having an argument, they are not even aware of what

language they are speaking.

Felix Boris & Danil Chris Van GestelBilingual children of the 21st Century

Apart from portraits of Russian and Dutch business men,

musicians, students and teachers, there are also two slightly

different pictures included in this photo and video exhibition,

intended to illustrate and symbolize the ties between Nizhny

Novgorod and Maastricht. They are two portraits of two

young brothers, one taken in Nizhny Novgorod, the other

in Maastricht. The connection between them is not only that

both boy couples have a Russian mother and a Dutch father, but

also a common godfather, Professor Joseph (‘Jo’) Spaubeck,

who meets them regularly when Jo is teaching either in Nizhny

Novgorod or in Maastricht.

Danil (right on previous page) and Felix are the sons of Roeland

Van Gestel, who features in a portrait of his own; Stan and

Nieck are the sons of Bert Schroën, who is the Director Faculty

of Bèta Sciences and Technology at Zuyd University.

The similarities between both pictures are, of course,

intentional. Not only did Guy Van Grinsven have the boys

positioned in more or less the same way, but there is also a

special relation to the location where the pictures were taken.

In Nizhny Novgorod, Felix and Danil are sitting on a bench in

front of a statue of famous Russian writer, literary critic and

journalist Nikolay Dobrolyubov, who was born in Nizhny

Novgorod in 1836. The statue is located on the corner of

ploshchad’ Teatralnaya and ulitsa Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, next

to the Academic Drama Theatre, in the very heart of Nizhny

Novgorod.

The picture of Stan and Nieck was taken in the very heart of

Maastricht, on Grote Looiersstraat, in front of the statue of

one of Maastricht’s most famous and beloved sons, Alphons

Olterdissen (1865–1923). As an unsuccessful business man he

started writing, in Maastrichtian dialect, popular plays and

musical comedies in order to pay off his debts. The final stanza

of his opera Trijn de Begijn eventually became the local anthem

of Maastricht.

Both Danil and Felix, and Stan and Nieck are true children of

the 21st Century, growing up bilingually (at least!) – speaking

Russian with their mothers and Dutch with their fathers.

And sometimes, for instance when they are talking with each

other or having an argument, they are not even aware of what

language they are speaking.

Stan & Nieck SchroënBilingual children of the 21st Century

This exhibition was made possible thanks to the generous contributions of:

Special thanks to

• The City of Maastricht: Deputy Mayor Jacques Costongs, Head of International & Public Affairs at Municipality of Maastricht Ton Wanders, Project officer International & Public Affairs Marianne Ravestein, Richard Hansen

• Noble House, Moscow: Theodorus Schreurs• Carglass, Russia: Pim Bemelmans• TGC Group of Companies, Moscow: Ostapishin Alexander General Director, John Habets• Lukoil• InterContinental Hotel Tverskaya, Moscow: Mathieu van Alphen• Lebedinoye Ozero (Swan Lake) Restaurant, Moscow: Nick Grachev• InterPunct: Frans T. Stoks• Vera Pepels Film & Media• StudioPress: Linda Jansen• NIVEAU BiZZ magazine euregio