This contribution focuses on a cultural practice that has experienced a strong boost, especially after the Second World War: town twinning. From a historical perspective, town twinning has often been associated with values such as international understanding, the promotion of peace and open-mindedness, and has been linked with the idea of bringing citizens from different contexts, that is, countries and regions, into direct, personal exchange. What meaning is attributed to town twinning arrangements today – in the context of multiple global crises and strong social polarization and contradictions? Our study explores this question using the example of Vienna and its diverse international district partnerships. The main interest lies in the places and objects of related encounters and in the way these connections are staged and dramaturgically set. Through an ethnographic and artistic research perspective and drawing on theoretical considerations of symbolic interactionism and theater studies, we investigate spaces and rituals characteristic to these connections, sometimes addressed as “diplomacy from below.” The analysis focuses in particular on gifts and artifacts and their placement in public space, and the narratives that encompass town twinning activities. In this context, failed connections and pretended declarations or expressions of (political) friendship are also of interest. The aim is to better understand forms of enactment of (trans-)locality and cosmopolitanism in and through town twinning.