Coventry council has voted to suspend the world’s first twin city relationship, pausing its 80-year connection with the Russian city of Volgograd over the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
The council announced “with a heavy heart” it was suspending twinning links with Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad, and would explore the possibility of twinning with the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
Coventry and Stalingrad forged links of solidarity after both were heavily bombed in the second world war.
After the Battle of Stalingrad, 830 women in Coventry sent the city money and a tablecloth embroidered with their names and the words “Little help is better than big sympathy”, which is now displayed in the Volgograd Panorama Museum.
This led to Coventry and Stalingrad becoming official sister cities in 1944, before many similar links were formed between cities across Europe to foster peace and reconciliation, and later to encourage trade and tourism.
There are now thousands of twin city relationships across the world, including more than 2,000 in the UK.
Labour-run Coventry city council had originally announced it would be keeping its twinning link with Vologograd in order to keep an open dialogue with the people of the city, rather than its council. “We believe that is the way to build peace and understanding,” the council deputy leader said in a statement.
The bishop of Coventry, the Right Rev Dr Christopher Cocksworth, said: “I think we need to use that twinning relationship to bring to the attention of our Russian friends the seriousness of the current situation and our horror at what is happening.”
The Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain said it was “disappointed” by the decision, and argued the relationship should be suspended, rather than scrapped completely, in order to “send a message” to the mayor of Volgograd.
In a full council meeting on Tuesday, councillors voted unanimously to suspend links with the city “until such a time that they can resume”.
Taiwo Owatemi, Labour MP for Coventry North West, said she welcomed the decision.
“In recent weeks, I have been listening to and engaging with the Ukrainian community in our city” she said. “They have repeatedly told me that they believe suspending our twinning link with Volgograd is the right thing to do, sending a powerful symbolic message to both the Ukrainian people and the Putin regime.
“I would like to thank Coventry city councillors for listening to our Ukrainian community and taking this important step to stand with Ukraine at this difficult time.”
The move comes after a number of other cities, including Exeter, Plymouth and Cheltenham, suspended ties with their Russian sister cities in recent weeks following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Coventry council stressed its commitment to continuing as the City of Peace and Reconciliation, an identity which emerged from its heavy bombardment during the blitz, and its twin city relationships with a number of war-torn cities including Hiroshima, Lidice, Caen, Belgrade and Sarajevo.
Earlier this month, the organisers of the Coventry city of culture programme announced they would be postponing a joint arts project with the Russian city, titled the Volgograd digital tablecloth, which has been in production since 2019.
It was to be a tapestry made from pictures donated by people living in both cities showing life through their eyes.
“We have taken the decision to postpone the public sharing of the tablecloth. This is absolutely no reflection on those involved in the project, but we feel this is the right course of action for now,” organisers said in a statement.
