
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 10, 1990                   TAG: 9004100725
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

SOVIET TO SPEAK AT FORUM AT HARRISON MUSEUM

Anastasia Mensah, a Soviet woman with ties to Virginia, will speak at an educational forum Friday at the Harrison Museum of African American Culture.

"The African Diaspora: A Russian Relation" will begin at 6 p.m. and is sponsored by the Lucy Addison Heritage Association.

Mensah's grandfather, the late George Tynes, was born in Norfolk and lived in Roanoke briefly before going to the Soviet Union in 1933 to teach Soviet agricultural workers. While in Moscow as director of a fish and poultry farm, Tynes met and married a Ukranian woman named Maria Stepanova. Their daughter, Emilia, is Mensah's mother and teaches chemistry and biology in Moscow.

Mensah, now 22 years old, is the first black Soviet student to study in the United States. She is pursuing a bachelor's degree in English at the University of the District of Columbia under a scholarship arranged by William B. Davis, a native of Roanoke County and a retired diplomat who now heads Wisdom Inc., a firm of international corporate advisers in Rockville, Md.

by CNB