Under the present-day globalization and elimination of ethnicity differences it is necessary to take care about designing the national sociocultural “brands” – only this will enable the nations to make favourable impression and attractive for consumers product. This point of view was expressed by the department chair of cultural studies of Komi State Pedagogical Institute, Professor Irina Fadeeva and senior lecturer of the same department Vladimir Sulimov on the conference “Innovational ways of development and methods of projecting ethnosocial situation in Komi Republic”, which was held on the 26 of February. The forum was devoted to the issues of ethnotourism in Komi. According to I. Fadeeva, not all the aspects of traditional culture of aboriginal population of the region are in demand on the tourism service market. “The world is full of “ethnic” villages, and we would be no exception at all,” – she highlighted.

“We can try hard to protect and save the ethnic culture, but this is an artificial way. We live in the world of globalization, where the ethnic culture foundations are being destroyed. According to the much-talked-of book “Requiem for Ethnos” by Valery Tishkov, director of the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography Russian Academy of Science, ethnos is ceasing to exist… of course, the main idea of the book is disputable; however, it is important to realize that now it is necessary not to conserve ethnos artificially, but to create its inviting image: both for the inner use, and the outer – for colleagues, friends, tourists and even investments.”

According to the Syktyvkar scientists, the best way of solving the problem would be the method of sociocultural planning, which enables creating the local areas, attractive from the economic, social and cultural point of view. An example of such planning is the work of the creative group of people, who had worked out and put to practice the idea of Finno-Ugric ethnocultural park in the village of Yb, Syktyvdinsky district of Komi republic in 2010.

“It is necessary to create aesthetically beautiful area, which would attract people from all over the world, “-she emphasized. When working out this idea, we gave up museumification of culture. We made up fantasy-story on the topic of Finno-Ugric culture, without borrowing the certain plots from Komi and other Finno-Ugric cultures, but compiling the generalized image for people who have been brought up on “Harry Potter” and Tolkien’s fantasy books”.