Twinning relationship between the State of Minnesota andthe Republic Mariy El, Russia

From:

Gennadiy Begelman

Sent:

Thursday, September 27, 2007 5:26 PM

To:

Velez, Agnes <FHWA>; Rodriguez, Ed <FHWA>; Kamel, Jihan <FHWA>; Murden, Patricia <FHWA>; Wlaschin, Patrick<FHWA>; Kern, Stephen <FHWA>;

Subject:

Twinning relationship between the State of Minnesota andthe Republic Mariy El, Russia

On behalf of the Office of Construction and Innovative Contracting I want to thank all of you who organized the visit from the Republic Mariy El to the State of Minnesota. You took time out from busy schedules to share knowledge and expertise with our colleagues from across the ocean. The engineers from Russia expressed a deep appreciation to the people of our country and to the cities, counties and the State of Minnesota transportation system in the areas of management, design, contract administration, construction and maintenance. We appreciate your efforts towards helping to maintain strong partnerships among the transportation industry, not only in Minnesota, but nationally and internationally.

From their last visit in 2005, the Russians bought $1 Million USA-made, cold-in-place recycling equipment. This time they looked close again at U.S.-made equipment in action, and were very interested to see maintenance equipment at Mn/DOT and the counties' truck stations. Thank you for helping to answer questions that they had.

Regards,

Gennadiy B. Begelman, P.E.
Project Development Engineer
Office of Construction & Innovative Contracting
395 John Ireland Blvd., MS 650
St. Paul, MN 55155-1899
Tel: 651.366.4245
Fax: 651.366.4248