Penza, 12 September 2017. PenzaNews. Representatives of the German Embassy in Russia – Ellen von Zitzevitz, adviser of the Economy and Science Department, and Denis Polo, staff member of the department of collaboration with Russian regions – visited the editorial office of the independent news agency PenzaNews, which had been working in Penza successfully over 10 years.

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The PenzaNews editor-in-chief Pavel Polosin noted that he was pleased to welcome the guests, especially as it was the first visit of embassy staff in the agency's history.

He conducted a short tour around the editorial office, which finished in the press centre. Most of the communication, which was mainly informal, took place there.

Pavel Polosin described the stages of the development of the private regional medium as well as the difficulties the journalists had to face. In addition, he mentioned the achievements the team of the news agency was proud of.

In turn, Ellen von Zitzevitz asked a number of questions in relation to work of mass media in Russian regions as exemplified in the Penza region.

In addition, the diplomat asked about the number of page views of the PenzaNews website.

After learning that the number of page views had remained at the level of over 1 million for half a year, that on average readers spent about 5 minutes at the Internet-resource and that PenzaNews was the most quoted Penza medium according to the Yandex company, Ellen von Zitzevitz stressed that she was impressed by such results.

Issues of mass media freedom in modern conditions became one of the keynotes of the interested conversation.

"In Germany we have the same understanding of media freedom as you have said," Ellen von Zitzevitz stated in respond to Pavel Polosin's remark that the mass media had an obligation to inform citizens objectively and reliably of what happened without allowing distortion when covering this or that point of view.

The diplomat also explained that she had come to Penza with the purpose to take part in the fifth Flensburg-Penza Congress, which will begin its work in Penza State University on Wednesday, September 13.

She noted that at that moment German-Russian relations were currently experiencing difficult times and therefore it was essential to maintain the dialogue not only at the level of the first persons of the two countries and heads of diplomatic departments but also between heads of the regions, students, journalists and representatives of other professions.

"I can say that collaboration of the cities Flensburg and Penza is very active compared to other similar ones. There are larger cities that cannot boast of such cooperation," Ellen von Zitzevitz said.

During the meeting, the parties discussed possible options for bilateral cooperation that could facilitate the establishment of Russian-German interaction. In particular, issues of energy, climate and environmental protection were mentioned.

It is expected that within the framework of the Flensburg-Penza Congress Ellen von Zitzevitz will hold a lecture in English on the topic "Current issues of environmental protection and energy conservation policy in Germany". The lecture will be accompanied by a translation. It will start in a conference hall of building No. 1 of Penza State University on Thursday, September 14, at 10.00.