English
Русский
The international competition of cultural practices “Heritage of Eurasia: Rural Communities” ended with the release of a unique publication - the methodological notebook “Technology for Creating Living Communities”. The competition was held by the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly in partnership with the Center for Social Technologies “Dealing with Meaning” with the support of the Presidential Foundation for Cultural Initiatives.
Participants from the Azerbaijan Republic, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and 12 regions of the Russian Federation were united by a common goal - promoting the development and scaling of cultural practices in rural areas of the Eurasian space and expanding the partnership potential of local communities in the preservation and development of cultural heritage.
For several months, representatives of municipalities prepared their own projects for the competition, participated in educational online webinars of the project, as well as in an educational forum in Moscow. The Forum included discussions on projects already being implemented, as well as on the development of new joint projects within the business communication strategy game “Happy Villages”. This form of work allowed the forum participants to get closer, get to know each other better, and find informal approaches to solving problems existing in rural areas. As Samat Abilov, a forum participant from the Kyrgyz Republic, noted, “Qualitative changes inevitably occur at the intersection points of the assigned tasks.”
Following the results of the two-day educational forum in Moscow, some of its participants, representing the most successful practices in implementing local community initiatives in rural areas, had the opportunity to take part in an internship in the Vachsky municipal district of the Nizhny Novgorod region. It was this territory that was chosen by the project experts as an example of the successful work of the administration, population and business for the development of their initiatives.
The result of the extensive and productive work of the participants in the international project - a competition of cultural practices - was the release of a methodological notebook, which all project participants will receive for further use in their work. The methodological notebook talks about the tools of trusting communication and value moderation and their use for creating and developing communities. The materials were prepared by experts from the International Union of Non-Governmental Organizations "Eurasian Peoples' Assembly" and the Center for Social Technologies "Dealing with Meaning".
Participation in the project provides an opportunity for rural activists to become part of the Eurasian community of authors of cultural projects, increase the level of competence in the field of preserving ethnocultural heritage through mastering the practice of design, meet experts in the field of rural development, exchange experiences, build network cooperation, form communities of rural leaders who can qualitatively change the appearance of the village, increasing the cultural heritage.
Svetlana Smirnova, project manager, Chairman of the General Council of the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly, in her address to the project participants, noted: “Rural communities are the foundation of our future. They need to be developed, because they contain the essence of our strength. An important task, in my opinion, is to strengthen vertical and horizontal ties, not only within countries, but also at the international level. And the closer this connection is, the stronger will be the foundations on which rural culture and rural communities rest today.
Events held in rural areas vary in scale, form, theme, genres of folk art and target audience. They often become a kind of brand of regions in different countries and even a brand of countries. But together they are aimed at introducing wide sections of the population to genuine culture, creating a sense of awareness of their cultural roots and, at the same time, global unity.”