Ukrainian ambassador meets with Bellevue leadership

Published 10:20 am Wednesday, February 10, 2016

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It’s a rare occurrence when the standing mayor of a city can wave around a mace at a city council meeting and no one blinks an eye.

But that was the case Monday night, when Bellevue mayor John Stokes showed the council and citizens in attendance his “peacemaker,” a traditional Ukrainian mace known as a bulawa meant to symbolize peace.

That morning, Stokes and council member Conrad Lee met with Ukrainian ambassador to the United States Valeriy Chaly, who presented the mace as a sign of friendship and possible partnership between Bellevue and Ukraine.

“It was a pretty interesting meeting,” Stokes said. “He wanted to establish a relationship with the city.”

Bellevue has a community of several thousand Ukrainian expatriates and first-generation immigrants, so Stokes was pleased for Chaly to meet with city leadership.

“It’s a fairly large, active community we have in town,” he said. “We were hoping to establish this area as a possible investment area.”

The Embassy of Ukraine in the USA’s Facebook page released a statement about the meeting and the possibilities in the future.

“The Embassy of Ukraine to the USA and the City of Bellevue will continue to explore expanding economic, trade and investment opportunities between Ukraine and Bellevue,” the release read. “Both sides stressed the importance of mutual investment in promoting respective long-term economic growth and employment.”

Stokes said some of the opportunities could be in cultural exchange programs or a possible sister-city relationship with Kiev or another major Ukrainian city.

Bellevue has several sister cities already: Hualien, Taiwan; Yao, Japan; Kladno, Czech Republic; and Liepaja, Latvia.

“We spoke about some event on or around Ukrainian Independence Day,” Stokes said of the August 24 holiday when Ukraine broke off from the Soviet Union. “The ambassador was very interested in Bellevue.”

The leaders exchanged some cultural books and Chaly gave the spiked wooden mace to Bellevue as another cultural exchange.

The Ukrainian release addressed the cross-cultural potential.

“Both sides agreed to promote people-to-people and cultural exchange and cooperation to deepen mutual understanding and perception between the peoples of Ukraine and the peoples of the City of Bellevue,” it read. “As a part of support of Ukrainian culture, the City of Bellevue will explore the availability of the Downtown Park for a Ukrainian song festival in August, around Ukraine’s Independence Day.”

Stokes noted that issues remain between Russia and Ukraine and that a Russian expat community also exists on the Eastside.

“I know tensions remain high,” he said. “But their cultures have quite a lot in common.”

As Bellevue drives to include more cultural events in town, Stokes believes the Ukrainian connection could provide exactly that.

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