As a spokesman for the press service of this organisation told RIA Novosti, the delegation of 40 children and teenagers was received by deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe Maud de Boer-Buquicchio.
The children visited the Palace of Europe and even its assembly hall at the time when a plenary session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the CE took place there. The chairman interrupted the session for several minutes to greet the children from Beslan on behalf of all the session participants and expressed solidarity with the families who lived through the tragedy.
Then, the president of the Congress, Giovanni di Stasi, handed over the money to the delegation, which was collected by the inhabitants of the Italian town of San Jiuliano di Puglia. That town also lived through a tragedy: during an earthquake in October 2002, 27 children died in a local school. The delegation from that town specially arrived in Strasbourg t o give the money to the Beslan children and to make an agreement about establishing twin-city relations with Beslan.
The young Russians also visited the headquarters of the European Court of Human Rights where they were received by Russian judge Anatoly Kovler.]
This trip was organized on the initiative of the German authorities which invited children from Beslan for recreation and at the same time granted them a chance to visit Strasbourg which is situated not far from the German-French border.
