Sister State Agreement with Iowa
Geography
Government
Main Cities and Towns
Population
Language
Agriculture
Industries
Transportation
Scenic Areas

Sister State Agreement with Iowa
The Agreement formalizing Iowa and Stavropol as Sister States was signed in 1988, when Governor Branstad and his Official Delegation went to Stavropol to initiate the relationship. In 1989, the then Governor Ivan Taranov of Stavropol and his official delegation came to Iowa and signed the Agreement. It should be noted that Iowa's ties to Russia predate the formal agreement by many years due to exchanges between citizens, political figures, agricultural experts and agribusiness trade.

Stavropol Krai became a Sister State to Iowa because of the many similarities the states share: geographic size, economies based on agriculture or ag-related industries and businesses, and nearly equal populations with a few large cities and many small towns. With so many things in common it seemed a natural fit to link the two peoples and time has proven the assumption to be correct. Both states have benefited through exchanges in the fields of agriculture, the arts, business, education, government, law, medicine, sports and economic development.

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Geography
Stavropol is both the name of the territory and the name of its capitol city. Coincidentally, Des Moines and Stavropol have similar sized populations.
Located on the northern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains, between the Caspian and the Black sea, Stavropol was founded in 1777 around one of a series of fortresses. It sits between the Manych River, and the Caucasus foothills, where it shares common borders with all the North Caucasus republics, including Chechnya. Its climate is moderate, with warm summer days, cool evenings and relatively mild winters.

Government
Stavropol Krai is governed by a democratically elected governor and state duma, or legislature. The cities are governed by elected mayors and in most of them by elected city councils. As democracy spreads in Russia, powers of government are gradually shifting to state and local and away from Moscow.

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Major cities and towns
The Caucasian Mineral Waters Area (CMW) is an ecologically protected resort region in the foothills covering 5,828 square kilometers. Within this region there are 118 health centers which are located in four cities: Kislovodsk; Yessentucki; Pyatigorsk; Zheleznovodsk.

Population
2,650,300 (1995), which is said to be l.79% of Russia's total. Urban population is considered to be 53.7% Stavropol Krai's population comprises a rich mixture of ethnicities, languages, religions and cultural traditions.

Language
Russian.

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Main agricultural products
Apart from the semi-desert east, the extensive Stavropol Plain is covered with fertile soil used for highly developed agriculture. Stavropol Krai produces l.92% of Russia's agricultural output. Principal agricultural crops are sunflowers, sugar beets, potatoes, wheat, dairy, fruit, vegetables, wine, cattle, hogs, sheep.

Industries
Stavropol Krai produces 0.73% of Russia's industrial output. There is some light industry, exploitation of natural gas deposits and several mineral water bottling plants in the Krai. These mineral waters are said to have certain curative powers and are distributed in Europe and the Middle East.

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Transportation
The Caucasian Mineral Waters Area has a major regional airport at Mineralny Vody. Federal highways and passenger train service link the territory to major cities in the Russian Federation and other countries.

Scenic areas
The mountains and forested foothills in the North Caucasus region are considered by many to be unsurpassed in beauty. Skiing and hiking are major sports here, as are soccer, basketball, etc.

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