Our History

The history of Toastmasters International is almost a century long already. As early as in 1924 Dr. Ralph Smedley, a farther of the organization, founded the first Toastmasters club in Santa Ana California. The Santa Ana club grew into a well-known non-governmental international institution and 65 years later our Toastmasters club was chartered in Russia. Its creation is owed to an American Robert Meyerson – a man who was passionately committed to the cause of Toastmasters. Robert organized our Club on June 14, 1989 and suggested the name “Moscow Free Speakers” Club. Robert meant in 1989 “that there was not yet freedom of speech in Russia, but I was giving the club members back then a goal to aim for and a title that would remind each member of that goal, no matter how difficult or how far away it seemed”. The Club was chartered on April 1, 1990 as # 6386-U (“U” means “undistricted”).

Moscow Free Speakers club is the third Toastmasters club in Russia. Firstly, Robert Meyerson organized the MGU Toastmasters club in Moscow in 1988. The club’s first honorary member Mikhail Gorbachev’s spokesman, Gennady Gerasimov suggested to start the second club at MGIMO. But the clubs only lasted two or three years.

Larisa Zorina, Olga Shiryaeva and Andreas Schmidt (BRD) organized German-speaking TI Club on 20/10/2003. They took the name “Redefluss Moskau” and received # 606654-U on 16/04/2004.

Ever since, the Russian branch of Toastmasters International has been spreading the word about the power of communication and leadership skills in Moscow. And the latter is the cornerstone of our mission – “to provide a mutually supportive and positive learning environment in which every individual member has the opportunity to develop oral communication and leadership skills, which in turn foster self-confidence and personal growth” (article 1 of the TI Constitution).

The Club elected the following presidents:

The club history was compiled by Henry Norman, ATM-S in 2004 when he was elected as the club vice-president membership.