The history of Rotary and Rotaract: around the world and in Russia

The history of Rotary International around the world

How one club in Chicago grew into the world's oldest and largest community of service.

23 February 1905, Chicago attorney Paul Harris gathered three friends: mining engineer Gustave Loehr, coal dealer Silvester Schiele, and tailor Hiram Shorey. Harris had come to Chicago from the provinces, and the city felt cold and disconnected to him, so he wanted to bring together people of different professions, so that friendship would serve business, and business would serve the city. They met in turn at each member's office, hence the name: Rotary.

That is how the world's first club of service came to be.

It all began as friendly gatherings. But within a decade and a half, clubs were operating on all six inhabited continents, the organisation took the name Rotary International, and service to the community became its central purpose. That happened by 1922.

In 1917, President Arch Klumph proposed establishing a charitable endowment “for doing good in the world.” The first contribution was 26 dollars. From that sum grew The Rotary Foundation, one of the world's largest private donors to humanitarian programs, from building schools to eradicating disease.

The Four-Way Test: the movement's code of ethics

In 1932, Rotarian Herbert Taylor was trying to save an aluminium cookware company from bankruptcy. There was no money left, and no reputation either, honesty in business was the only resource that remained. Taylor distilled it into four questions employees had to ask themselves about every decision, word, and action.

The test proved so accurate that Rotary adopted it as its own unofficial code. It still works today, nearly a century later. You'll find it in full below, in the “Rotary Principles” section.

Polio and global humanitarian campaigns

In 1985, the movement launched the End Polio Now campaign. The goal was audacious: eradicate polio from the planet entirely. Since then, cases have dropped by more than 99.9%, and billions of children across dozens of countries have been vaccinated through the efforts of Rotarians and their partners, including the World Health Organization and UNICEF.

Today Rotary International unites more than 1.2 million people in 46,000 clubs in almost every country on Earth.

The history of Rotaract around the world

Rotary International's youth wing: from a single student club in the US to a movement on every continent.

Rotary's youth program was born almost six decades after the movement itself. On 13 March 1968, the world's first Rotaract club was chartered in North Carolina, built on the same principles as adult Rotary: service, friendship, action. The one difference was the age of its members: 18 to 30.

Traditions took shape right away. In the photo above, members of the very first Rotaract club plant a tree to mark each new country the movement reaches. They ran this project for years together with their sponsoring Rotary Club of Charlotte.

From there the movement grew rapidly. Within two decades, Rotaract had spread across India, Australia, Europe, and Latin America, bringing together students and young professionals around local and international projects, and by 2017, its 50th anniversary, it already counted thousands of clubs and hundreds of thousands of members.

The biggest change came in 2019. Rotaract clubs joined Rotary International directly, the upper age limit for membership was removed, and members officially became Rotarians on equal footing with adult club members.

Today there are more than 11,000 Rotaract clubs worldwide and over 200,000 members in 180-plus countries. Rotaract Moscow-East is part of that network.

The history of Rotary in Russia

Rotary's path into Russia was a long one: from the first diplomatic contacts in Soviet times to today's District 2223, of which Rotaract Moscow-East is a part.

First steps: 1983–1990

The first known attempts to establish Rotary in Russia date back to 1983, when three Finnish district governors, Pentti Saaksjärvi, Yrjö Kaukiainen, and Teivo Ilmonen, notified the General Secretary of Rotary International of their interest in founding clubs in the Leningrad region. In 1985, Rotary International President M.A.T. Caparas backed the initiative, and in August 1986 the press attaché at the Soviet embassy in Finland, Yuri Popov, received the first materials about Rotary.

From there, events moved through diplomatic channels. On 18 February 1988, the USSR's ambassador to Finland, V. M. Sobolev, sent his representative, Pyotr Lillenurm, to learn more about the movement, and the materials landed on the desks in Moscow of the people who could decide whether to allow Rotary into the country.

The answer took over a year to arrive. In April 1989, embassy secretary in Helsinki Yuri Popov approached the Rotary Club of Helsinki, asking it to sponsor the first club in Moscow. The initiative was backed by past Rotary International President Rolf Klärich and sitting president Hugh Archer, who managed to secure guarantees of support from the Soviet government.

1990: the first clubs are born

In early 1990, Rotary International adopted a plan for developing the movement in the USSR: one club in each of 10 to 12 major cities. It all happened within a single year. Rotary Club Moscow appeared in June, Irkutsk in July (chartered on 23 July), and Leningrad in October.

The resulting geography was quirky: Moscow and Leningrad were placed in Finland's District 142, while Irkutsk joined District 5010, alongside Alaska in the US. Jorma Lampén, later a director of Rotary International, played an active role in founding the Leningrad club.

The 1990s: growth through hardship

In its early years, the Irkutsk club took on some of Russian Rotary's first social projects: a contribution to the “Mercy Fund,” 200,000 rubles in aid to a cancer center, distributing 34 tonnes of medicine donated by the German Red Cross to nursing homes, orphanages, and hospitals, and the first school exchange between Oregon and an Irkutsk school. By 1994, Irkutsk hospitals had received $2.5 million in humanitarian aid.

In 1993–1994, Rotary International split Russia into two zones, west and east of the Urals, assigning the eastern zone to District 5010. Almost immediately, there was talk of removing Russia from that district's jurisdiction. The young district voted unanimously against it and held on to its independence.

By the late 1990s there were already around forty clubs. For five years running, the committee for Rotary's development in Russia was chaired by Jack Randolph.

The 2000s: the network grows, and the first Russian governor

In 2004–2005, a Russian became governor of District 5010 for the first time, Vladimir Donskoy of Irkutsk. By then the district ranked in the top twenty of the world's 530 districts by contributions to The Rotary Foundation, new Rotary and Rotaract clubs were opening from Vladivostok and Yakutsk to Barnaul and Krasnoyarsk, and sister-district ties with Korea and Taiwan were growing stronger.

2012: District 2225 becomes independent

The idea of splitting the vast District 5010, which covered all of Siberia and the Russian Far East, had been discussed for five years. The decision was made in 2012.

As of 1 July 2012, the Russian portion of the district became independent District 2225, with Andrei Konyushok elected as its first governor. The district adopted its own governing documents, launched the site rotary2225.org, got its own anthem, and signed partnership agreements with districts in South Korea and Taiwan.

2015: 25 years of Rotary in Russia

In May 2015, St. Petersburg hosted the first joint conference of two districts, 2220 and 2225, in the history of Russian Rotary, marking the movement's 25th anniversary in the country. More than 200 Rotarians came from as far as Kamchatka and Kaliningrad, along with guests from eleven countries.

The conference was co-chaired by governors Mikhail Batkhan and Andrei Ibragimov, Rotary International director Julia Phelps sent her congratulations, and discussions covered membership growth, the work of The Rotary Foundation, and partnerships with Germany, the US, Bulgaria, India, Korea, and Taiwan.

Today: District 2223 and our club

Today Russia's network is united in Rotary International's District 2223: dozens of Rotary and Rotaract clubs working in contact with one another and with districts in other countries.

It's within this tradition that our club appeared in Moscow in 2006: a private international community of young professionals, united by the same principles as Paul Harris's four friends a century earlier, and one that today builds its own partnerships with clubs in Ireland, Germany, Turkey, and China.

The history of Rotaract in Russia

From the first clubs, alongside Russian Rotary's own growth, to today's network, of which Rotaract Moscow-East is a part.

Rotaract came to Russia in Rotary's own footsteps. Through the 1990s and 2000s, youth clubs opened one after another alongside new Rotary clubs, each sponsored by an adult chartering club. Ours was founded the same way, in 2006.

By the mid-2010s it was already a sizeable network. A 2015 district report counted 26 clubs and 391 members, and in a single Rotary year the two districts together ran 109 projects: support for children's and rehabilitation centers, special-needs schools, and nursing homes, fundraising, and inter-club initiatives.

Today there are around sixteen Rotaract clubs in Russia, from Moscow and St. Petersburg to the Urals and the Far East, and all of them are part of an international network of more than 1.2 million Rotarians and Rotaractors in 200 countries.

Rotaract Moscow-East is one of them. Since 2006 we have run our own projects in Moscow, built partnerships with clubs in other countries, and remained part of District 2223.

The tradition that began in a small law office in Chicago in 1905 continues.