On 31th of May the Finno-Ugric
Capital of Culture 2017 competition had been closed. Now the Finno-Ugric Capitals
of Culture Programme Bureau officially announces that three different municipalities
applied for the title. “We’ve got two materials from Finland and one from
Russia. We warmly welcome the Finnish town Kuhmo and Sippola, plus the Karelian
Vuokkiniemi” – said Peter Aranyi, the head of the Finno-Ugric Capitals of Culture Programme
Bureau. He added: according to the selection procedure these three
municipalities can participate automatically in the final round in Helsinki, on
5th of August.
According the selection procedure the international jury should have named the three best candidates, who could participate in the final
round, but facing the fact that this year the three municipalities have been
applied means that they can go automatically. “Even so we can expect a very hard competition, because the applications represent high level of work” –
noted Peter Aranyi. The next winner could be the fifth Finno-Ugric Capital of
Culture in line. Besides the next title holder will come from a region, where wasn’t
Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture, yet.
In the competition of Finno-Ugric Capitals of Culture 2017 there are two
new candidates. The biggest contestant is Kuhmo from East-Finland, because
it is has got almost 9 000 residents and most of them are Finns. Another Finnish participant is Sippola with approximately
600 inhabitants. The town situated in South-Finland is lived by Finns, Udmurts,
Karelians, Estonians and Inkeri-Finns. With Voukkiniemi (Voknavolok) we can
welcome a re-entrant contestant who already participated in the final round of the competition
for Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture 2015.
These three candidates will get a chance to introduce their own
applications personally in 5th of August, in Helsinki, in the Hungarian Balassi
Institute. About the winner an international jury will decide according the
applications and the presentations in the same day, in the Finnish capital. The
decision-making body consists the current president of MAFUN, Käbi Suvi;
communication director of Obinitsa, Annela Laaneots (Estonia); the former
president of MAFUN, Sveta Kolchurina (Russia) and the nenets folk researcher of
the University of Helsinki, Karina Lukin dr. (Finland). The project coordinator
of Iszkaszentgyörgy, Daniel Waliduda and the professor emeritus of the
Pannonian University, Zsolt Lengyel is also seated in the jury.
Finno-Ugric Capitals of Culture is an initiative of
MAFUN – Youth Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples – with the objectives to
strengthen common identity of kindred Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic peoples, to
raise awareness of Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic peoples and languages and the
Uralic language family, and to stimulate cultural, economic and civil development on a local level. First-ever Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture was
Udmurtian village Bygy in 2014. It was followed in 2015 by Seto village,
Obinitsa and this year the Hungarian village, Iszkaszentgyörgy, plus the chief
town, Veszprém can wear the title Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture 2016. Both
municipalities are situated in Hungary, in the “Region of the Kings”.
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