Project History

Intense friendship relationships with the most important personalities of the Russian population lead the Association ‘Rondine Cittadella della Pace’ to respond to the request of help made during the first Russian-Chechen conflict, in January 1995. The disproportion between the request and the sense of inadequacy didn’t anyhow stop the Association from putting itself to the test, leading to a mediation action which determined the first 74 hour truce between the parts. Fifteen years after Rondine’s debut in the conflict scene of the Caucasian region, that story of friendship continues with a new commitment: the project entitled ‘Ventidipacesucaucaso’ (Windsofpeaceoncaucasus) which aims at carrying out concrete, incisive and sustainable reconciliation actions in response to the war that broke out in August 2008.   Confrontation soon began within Rondine’s International Hall of Residence between those who had demonstrated that peaceful coexistence between populations in conflict is possible: not only the students coming from the different Caucasian regions and resident in Rondine, but also the ‘Rondini D’Oro’ (Golden Swallows), that, returned to their home countries after the Rondine experience, testimony the existence of a possibility for peace. A profitable and propositional dialogue developed from the actual experience of the young Caucasian students at Rondine, now decided to bring into effect their newly acquired consciousness and to maintain their friendship. This dialogue was concretized into an ambitious project. Ambitious but certainly not utopian, as the development of the document entitled ’14 points for peace in the Caucasus’, conceived by them, in close collaboration with the members of the Association, was able to involve scholars of international reputation and to constitute an actual International Editorial Group made up by experts belonging to the areas directly involved in the conflict and of other nationalities. These experts confirmed and supported, with a solid theoretical argumentation, the intuitions derived from the true experience of the young students at Rondine. In May 2009 the project ‘Ventidipacesucaucaso’ confirmed its efficacy and succeeded in the organization of an unprecedented event: the first “Conference of the peoples of the Caucasus” which was attended by participants with up to fifteen different ethnic and cultural origins. The Conference, held in Rondine, Arezzo, Florence and La Verna (Italy), culminated with the conclusive meeting in the ‘Salone dei Cinquecento’ of Palazzo Vecchio (Florence) during which the 14 points were handed out to the representatives of Italian national institutions. The involvement was extended to the Senate of the Italian Republic with the official handover of the Document. Now the ‘14 points’ are ready to sew up the path towards peace in the Caucasus and to cross those borders which still divide populations.