Petrozavodsk State University took another All-Russian Conference of the Finno-Ugric peoples, according to “Vedomosti of Karelia”. The event was held for the fifth time and has a long history. The tradition of general meetings of the Finno-Ugric peoples originated in the USSR after the war, but with the collapse of the Union it was lost. The Conference was revived in 1994 and since then every 5 years Finno-Ugric peoples come together to discuss the problems of their culture.

Now, according to researchers of the national culture and language, there is a decline of interest to studies of the Finno-Ugric culture. It even affected the structure of Petrozavodsk State University. Earlier this year, the Department of Baltic and Finnish Philology and Culture was removed and became part of the Philological Department. The reason for this reorganization was reduction in number of students by 4 times compared to the end of the 90s. 

According to Irma Mullonen, Director of the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Karelian Research Center, this decline is due to several reasons: 

— One of them is globalization, the other one is difficulties in job employment: those places which are created, are filled with our graduates and, frankly, there are not as many jobs as are needed. Decline is due to the fact (and this is a worldwide trend) that humanities are now present in the background, and, after all, these disciplines are human capital assets. Why do we still have a person at a secondary position to the economy, I utterly don’t understand.