Youth Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples (MAFUN) and URALIC Centre for Indigenous Peoples today announce the start of the competition for the title of Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture 2020. Winner of the competition will be announced on June 14, 201, in the Mari village Shorunzha – Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture 2019.


Established in 2013, the programme of Finno-Ugric Capitals of Culture is a flagship initiative of MAFUN and URALIC Centre that aims to raise awareness of Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic peoples as well as Uralic languages, to strengthen collective Finno-Ugric identity and to stimulate sustainable local development in different corners of the Finno-Ugric world. 

To date, the title of Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture has been awarded to six villages or cities: Udmurtian village Bygy (2014), Seto village Obinitsa (2015), Hungarian village Iszkaszentgyörgy and City of Veszprém (2016), Karelian village Vuokkiniemi (2017) and Mari village Shorunzha (2019). The title of Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture has helped raise the profile of the title-holder both domestically and internationally, including via cultural tourism. Even more importantly, the status of a Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture has strengthened local communities and provided new opportunities for development. The programme has been warmly received both in the Finno-Ugric world and beyond, and has been described as a good example of the promotion of indigenous peoples’ cultural rights by Ms. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  

MAFUN and URALIC Centre are today announcing the start of the competition for the title of Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture 2020. For this competition, villages, towns and cities from any Finno-Ugric country or region are welcome to apply, except national capitals (in the case of Estonia, Finland and Hungary) or regional capitals in the Russian Federation. The only region that is excluded from the current competition is Mari El Republic, given that Shorunzha is the current title-holder (Applicants from Mari El will be again eligible for the 2021 title).  

Application materials of the Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture 2020 competition are available on the programme’s website www.uralic.org/projects/capitals/downloads. The deadline for written applications is April 30, 2019 and the winner of the competition will be selected on June 14 in Shorunzha (Mari El). The competition of Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture 2020 has been supported by the Kindred Peoples’ Programme of Estonia.  

Contact:  

Oliver Loode, Head of Programme Bureau, Finno-Ugric Capitals of Culture 

oliver.loode@uralic.org , Tel. +372 513 2992