A delegation of the Japanese city of Nagato (the Yamaguchi Prefecture) has arrived in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi to sign a town twinning agreement, Sochi Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov told TASS.

"A delegation from Japan’s Nagato has arrived in Sochi. The aim of their visit is to sign an agreement on establishing friendly relations between the two cities," the mayor said.

A decision to sign such an agreement was made at a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held in Sochi in May 2016. In September, the two leaders met during the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok. That was when Abe invited Putin to visit his home city of Nagato located on the western coast of Japan's main island of Honshu. In December 2016, the Russian leader made a visit to the city, following which the city authorities launched talks with Sochi on establishing a sister-cities relationship.

"On September 28, members of the Nagato delegation will meet with the Sochi mayor and heads of the city administration’s departments, as well as with the chairman and members of the city’s legislature," a spokesman for the Sochi administration told TASS.

According to him, delegation members are expected to take a walk around Sochi and visit the Sports Museum. They will also plant a maple tree in the Russian-Japanese Friendship Garden and attend the Formula One Russian Grand Prix being held in Sochi, the spokesman added.

He pointed out that Nagato would be Sochi’s tenth sister city. The Black Sea resort already has town twinning agreements with Cheltenham (England), Menton (France), Rimini (Italy), Espoo (Finland), Long Beach (the United States), Trabzon (Turkey), Parnu (Estonia), Weihai (China) and Baden-Baden (Germany).