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Expert article 865 Baltic Rim Economies, 21.12.2011 Quarterly Review 5�2011 Positioning Turku on the world map – the city’s year as the European Capital of Culture By Suvi Innilä The year 2011 was Turku’s moment to shine in the world’s spotlight as the city celebrated its European Capital of Culture status alongside the Estonian city of Tallinn. Now, as the year is at its end, one can already say that Turku has taken full advantage of this unique moment, not only in terms of developing the cultural life of the city and the wellbeing of its residents, but also in relation to its global visibility and attractiveness. The Turku 2011 preparations began as early as 2003 and aimed, throughout the process, at increasing wellbeing, developing creative industries as well as strengthening Turku’s international presence – the legacy of which will last long into the future. The Capital of Culture programme included 163 individual projects consisting of 5,000 various events and activities. These were organised by thousands of artists and other actors from as many as 63 different countries, resulting in wideranging cooperation. The overall attendance to the events was nearly 2 million. The programme introduced a variety of magnificent and unique large-scale events for bigger audiences- These included the Grand Opening event in mid January, the world’s first heavy musical 1827 Infernal Musical, the youth orientated Eurocultured street festival in May, the awe-inspiring Cirque Dracu-la variety performances during the summer and opera performances in the courtyard of the Turku Castle during August. The Culture 2011 Tall Ships Regatta on the last weekend in August was specially arranged and brought in excess of 350 000 visitors to the Turku port and marina. The world premiere of a new Finnish opera Eerik XIV was hosted in November, whilst the six exhibitions of the Logomo centre for culture were open for the public every day during 2011. The Turku 2011 programme was not, however, only about spectacles and grand events . It also included a wide range of community-based projects as well as research and development projects. These are providing long-term operational models of great importance to their target groups. The new art-based learning methods for pupils with learning difficulties and the individual cultural plans for the elderly people living in elderly people’s homes are just a couple of examples. ‘Culture does good’ was Turku’s main message to Europe as the European Capital of Culture. The Turku 2011 programme included tens of projects which in different ways supported and strengthened people’s wellbeing and health through culture and arts. These projects were monitored and studied by a multidis-ciplinary research programme on cultural wellbeing at Turku University. This combination of practical wellbeing projects and research forms a legacy that has raised interest from all across Europe. The Turku 2011 process was heavily focused on people. Communality, wide participation and openness were the keyprinciples when realizing the goals for the year. The programme was based on a wide un-derstanding of culture, aimed at luring new target groups as well as helping as many people as possible to embrace the Capital of Culture Year. The success of these objectives is already being realised. The increase in interest towards culture is strongly evident throughout Southwest Finland: over 40% of Turku residents and over 20% of other residents of Southwest Finland report increases in consumption of cul-ture. As many as 96% of the Finnish population knew about Turku’s position as the European Capital of Culture, and the figure was even higher in the Turku region. 14 These results were partly achieved through the strong emphasis on accessibility as well as the easy ap-proach to the programme’s activities. Although the year introduced the audience to bold and artistically ambitious productions, it also brought culture and arts to the streets of Turku. There were several open-air events and exhibitions of environmental art, such as the Flux Aura project, alongside many communitybased cultural events taking place in the suburbs of Turku, including the Suburban Weeks project. As mentioned, Turku’s year as the European Capital of Culture was not only about developing the city and the wellbeing of its residents, it was also very much about placing Turku on the world map. The value attributed to the visibility in the domestic media was €33 million. Altogether 500 international journalists visited Turku during 2010 and 2011. They obviously liked what they saw and heard as the value of the visibility of Turku 2011 in the international media was at least €20 million. It should be noted that coverage of the cultural year was global, not only European, beginning with a two page article in the New York Times in the autumn of 2010 and continuing to reach media outlets in countries as far afield as Mexico, Thailand, Japan and Australia. Another notable achievement was Turku’s nomination as the 4th most interesting travel destination in 2011, in USA Today’s Top Travel destinations. So what was it that made the international media interested in Turku as the European Capital of Culture? The answer is quite clear – everything which made Turku’s year unique and special. In the globalized world, local idiosyncrasies and the qualities that distinguish one city from another are what make a place most attractive. Concerts and art exhibitions located in the archipelago, projects such as Saunalab that introduce special saunas designed by artists in the city centre, or the 876 Shades of Darkness project reflecting the Finnish relationship with darkness. All of this as well as the city’s atmosphere, the restau-rants and the local food, were of great interest to the global media. The international media was also very attracted to Turku’s wellbeing approach to culture, including the 5,000 cultural prescriptions – tickets to Turku 2011 events and exhibitions - the doctors of the health cen-tres in Turku distributed to their patients in 2011. As Turku demonstrates, receiving the European Capital of Culture title can serve as a once-in-a-life-time opportunity for a city, especially for a middle-sized European city such as Turku. However, although the year itself was a success, the challenge of maintaining the Capital of Culture spirit after 2011 is what the citizens of Turku are now embracing. Suvi Innilä Programme director Turku 2011 Foundation Finland M.A. Suvi Innilä has been working with the Turku 2011 project since its begin-ning. She led Turku’s bidding phase for becoming the European Capital of Culture 2011 during the years 2004 – 2007, and became the Programme Director of the Turku 2011 Foundation in May, 2008. � Pan-European Institute � To receive a free copy please register at www.tse.fi/pei �
Expert article 866 Baltic Rim Economies, 21.12.2011 Quarterly Review 5�2011 Role and achievements of the Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM) on environment and energy in North-West (NW) Russia, as a part of the Baltic Sea Region By Arne Grove The official Nordic cooperation involves five Nordic countries and is implemented in the framework of the Nordic Council of Ministers, an equivalent cooperation between the Nordic governments. Historically, relations with Russia and the Baltic countries have been directly decisive for stability and development in the Nordic region. Willing to further extend these relations NCM earmarked a substantial part of its budget for this cooperation and opened its offices in the three Baltic countries in 1991 and in St. Petersburg in 1995. Then in 2006 the office in Kaliningrad was established. This article will be with focus from Kaliningrad since the office was opened even other activities has been undertaken by the offices in the Baltic States and St. Petersburg and by other Nordic institutions like NEFCO and Nordregio. Environment The NCM Information office in Kaliningrad has been playing an active role in the promotion of the implementation of HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) since 2008 by arranging Stakeholder workshops in NW Russia aimed at facilitating involvement of local actors into the process of implementation of BSAP for NW Russia. As the result recommendations on the implementation of BSAP in NW Russia developed together and approved by the Governments of NW Russia regions were included in the National Action Plan for BSAP implementation, which was presented at the Ministerial meeting in Moscow in May 2010. Currently, the cooperation with HELCOM on promoting the implementation of HELCOM BSAP for NW Russia is continued. To this end NCM granted EUR 200 000 to carry out activities in the Russia complementary to the activities within the EU-financed project “Sub-regional risk of spill of oil and hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea” (BRISK, 2010-2012). The NCM project called BRISK-RU ensures participation of the Russian experts in the joint implementation of the HELCOM BSAP. BRISK and BRISK- RU are flagship projects of the EU Baltic Sea Strategy and are carried out under the auspices of HELCOM. Both projects are aimed at increasing preparedness of all Baltic Sea countries to respond to major spills of oil and hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea. The work included overall risk assessment of pollution caused by shipping accidents (incl. the impact of oil, environmental vulnerability, effect of different investigated scenarios for each sub-region, effect of existing response measures for each sub-region) covering the whole Baltic Sea area; identifying gaps in existing emergency and response resources and preparing a list of needed additional resources and elaborating corresponding investment plans for sub-regions; facilitating the development and conclusion of sub-regional agreements between neighboring countries to ensure efficient joint response operations. Facilitation of participation of Russia in these activities is deemed of vital importance in reaching the goals of the HELCOM BSAP and the EU Baltic Sea Strategy. 15 Energy efficiency and energy planning Since 2008 NCM has been active in cooperation with NW Russia and the Baltic states on energy planning, energy saving, energy efficiency and promotion of use of renewable energy. NCM established a dialogue on energy cooperation with the authorities on national, regional and local levels as well as with such international actors as BASREC, Baltic Development Forum and Union of Baltic Cities. This cooperation provided a good possibility for these organizations to work with actors responsible for energy planning and implementing the Russian Federal Law on energy efficiency adopted in November 2009. The NCM Information office in Kaliningrad made a great contribution to this cooperation by organizing a number of activities for example, energy workshops and conferences, study visits, Energy Planning Academy BALREPA and trainings on energy management according to international standards ISO 50001. One of the outcomes of this work is the established network of energy managers from 11 regions of NW Russia and municipalities of the Kaliningrad Region, as well as energy experts within involved regions. The energy activities facilitated better understanding, motivation and contributed to the increasing of energy efficiency in NW Russia and paved the way to more projects financed by NCM, EU, local and federal funds and NEFCO (3 projects developed by some of involved municipalities are approved and 10 more projects are in a pipeline). The energy activities financed by NCM initiated changes in the vision of involved stakeholders on sustainable development of the BSR with regard to energy policy, energy scenarios and better energy planning. During this year’s annual summit of Baltic Development Forum in Gdansk the Nordic Council of Ministers had a session on Bioenergy. Sustainable production and use of bioenergy will be a new direction of the activities of the Nordic Council of Ministers, where the role of the offices in close cooperation with the secretariat in Copenhagen can be to facilitate cooperation among relevant stakeholders and support sustainable economic growth in the Baltic Sea Region. Arne Grove Director Nordic Council of Ministers Information office Kaliningrad Russia � Pan-European Institute � To receive a free copy please register at www.tse.fi/pei �
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