ПThe winner of the international competition “Cultural Capitals of the Finno-Ugric World” was the Udmurt Village Starye Bygi in the Sharkan district of Udmurtia. The decision of the jury was announced simultaneously with the closing of the XI Congress of the Youth Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples (MAFUN) in Helsinki on August 7th.
Eight villages and towns competed for the title of cultural capital of the Finno-Ugric world: a town in the Kazym Beloyarsk district of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, also known as Yugra, the town of Kyshik in the Khanty-Mansi district of the KhMAO, the village Russkinskaya in the Surgut district of the KhMAO (the native people are Khanty), the village of Obinitsa in the Setomaa district of Estonia (inhabited by the Seto people), the town of Semiley in the Kochkurovsky district of Mordovia (where the Erzya people live), the village of Starye Bygi in the Sharkan district of Udmurtia (Udmurts), the town of Veshkelitsa in the Suoyarvi district of Karelia (Karelians), the town of Yb in the Syktyvdinsky district of the Komi Republic (Komi).
The second level of the competition was reached by the Karelian village of Veshkelitsa, the Udmurt Starye Bygi and the Seto town Obinitsa. These three population centers were represented by a self-made presentation in the Estonian embassy in Moscow on the 8th of July, when the jury, which included MAFUN president Vasily Nemechkin, Vice-Speaker of the KhMAO Duma Yeremey Aypin, the Karelian musician and organizer of the folk-group “Sattuma,” Arto Rinne, the Estonian writer Anne Türnpu, and Udmurt singer Nadezhda Utkina, chose the winner, which was held in secret for the whole following month.
Representatives of the three finalists came out for the participants of the MAFUN Congress and before the results of the contest were announced, in general they told about their small homeland, promised to host an array of events in the following year if they won, and also sand national songs. Jury member Utkina, who came to Helsinki on a request to comment on the results of the contest sang scenes in Udmurt of a song-story about this project.
The village of Starye Bygi became the winner of the contest, and the mascot was chosen as a large wooden bird, made in a manner resembling objects of the Perm animal style. Veshkelitsa and Obinitsa were also going to have birds as mascots, but of a much smaller size.
Also, the winner will receive a prize of three thousand Euros, given for support of the project by Finland.
