The Los Angeles-St. Petersburg Sister City Committee and the Los Angeles Unified School District have developed an art and cultural exchange, and citizen outreach project between the students of LAUSD and their peers in St. Petersburg, Russia, to celebrate the twenty year friendship between the two cities.

Consul General of the U.S. in St. Petersburg Sheila Gwaltney, Administration of Saint Petersburg representatives, rector of Academy of Industrial Art and Design of Shtiglitz A. Talashuk, the founder of Master Class festival Tamara Semenova, famous artists, and participants of the Master Class festival was presented.

This pilot project will be expanded to include all the LAUSD Local School Districts in 2011. Four hundred paintings will be selected through a competition and eventually exhibited at the Master Class International Art Festival. Art works from St. Petersburg youth will be concurrently exhibited in Los Angeles.

Mayor Villaraigosa expressed his support in a letter forwarded to St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Ivanovna Matvienko.

The Los Angeles/St. Petersburg Sister City Committee is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting goodwill and facilitating the flow of culture, ideas and capital between the two cities.

Master Class is a non-profit organization founded by the international fund for cultural support «MASTER CLASS». It is supported by the State Hermitage Museum, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Committee of Culture of the State Duma, Administration of Saint Petersburg, and Saint Petersburg Department of Cultural Workers Union. The President of the Festival is the director of the State Hermitage Museum M. B. Piotrovsky.