The European Textile Network (ETN), set up at the opening of the borders to Eastern Europe in 1989/90, had members from former East-European countries at a very early date. Its 5th conference in 1995 took place in St. Petersburg. The next ETN meeting came in 1996 in Kherson, in the South-Ukraine with the aim to bring together old and new partners from the Black Sea region to discuss textile-cultural themes.The Council of Europe had send an official representant to take part. The hosts of this meeting were the “Scythia” founders Ludmila Egorova and Andrew Schneider from Kherson at the Dnieper estuary, north of the Crimea peninsula. Ever since – thanks to Scythia – ETN has had very active partners in this European region, currently suffering from Putin´smilitary pressure, ostensibly in the interest of Russia´s population.
In our media the south of the Ukraine is described as oriented towards Russia. Andrew Schneider wrote his version of the current events on facebook (only accesible for facebook users).
Note: Issue 1/1996 of TEXTILE FORUM magazine was devoted completely to South-East Europe, the Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria with an editorial article about the European identity.
Note: See also blog post exhibitions
