Moscow Gets Its First Rotary Club

MOSCOW — Rotary International, the worldwide service organization, opened its first club in the Soviet Union on Tuesday, expanding its network to 169 nations.

The Moscow club has 25 members, including businessmen, a theater manager and the head of a translation agency, officials of the group said.

The organization has never had a club in Moscow. It was evicted from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia after those independent states were annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II, said Rotary President Hugh Archer.

It was also evicted from 19 other countries “where heavy socialist ideology was the one selected by the government,” said Archer, of Dearborn, Mich.

In the past three years, Rotary began receiving inquiries from Soviet officials and citizens.

Viktor Mozolin, a lawyer and business law professor who is president of the Moscow club, said its opening was “connected to the whole process of democratic reform in the Soviet Union.”

Rotary, which brings together community and business leaders to build international goodwill, also opened clubs this year in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, Archer said.