International events: Russian-Finnish forum in 2013 to be held in Veliky Novgorod

October 3-6, 2012 the Finnish city Joensuu hosted the XIII Russian-Finnish cultural forum, which was attended by about 330 delegates.

Two working days of the XIII Forum and the diverse cultural program contained many events. General discussions about the regional importance of culture and cross-border cooperation, the "secrets of success of the project", multiculturalism and tolerance have passed.

The thematic workshop on library business included speech on activity of digital libraries, readers of a new generation and a new culture of reading. The themes of the seminar on "Education and Culture" were the issues of cooperation in international projects and programs, as well as Best Practices - examples of successful bilateral work at the secondary school level, teaching of cinema making, art management, body language and other areas of education. The thematic seminar "Together we achieve more" talked about how culture transcends boundaries, and how important an international cultural event has for regional development.

Representatives of the Finnish culture started to the Cultural Forum in 2012 in Joensuu 102 proposals for partnership projects. 316 responses were from Russian cultural figures. In Joensuu it has been conducted more than 120 talks on 69 partnership projects, and thus it was launched a start of joint theatrical and musical productions, the Russo-Finnish youth camp, bilateral school projects, library cooperation, holding festivals and historical reconstructions, the exchange of students between universities, master classes and art exhibitions.

Starting from 2000, the forums are held annually and alternately in Finland and Russia. For 12 years, the annual forum has been attended by 3,243 workers of culture; it has been offered 1674 projects, in the discussion of which 1744 people has taken part. More than 500 Russian-Finnish partnership projects were implemented and, some of them continue to operate successfully in present.

The next, the XIV Russian-Finnish Cultural Forum will be held in September 2013 in Novgorod. It is a city with a rich cultural heritage, which history is closely intertwined with the history of Finland; it takes a constant and active part in the coordination of forum activity.

Cultural Forum 2014 will be held in Oulu, Finland, and in 2015 cultural workers of Finland and Russia are invited to the capital of the Republic of Karelia – Petrozavodsk.