Mariupol and Slavutych spoke about plans for the status of cultural capitals

On February 4, the national news agency Ukrinform hosted a presentation of initiatives of cities that became the first winners of the Cultural Capitals of Ukraine program - Mariupol and Slavutych.

The speakers of the event were:

• Oleksandr Tkachenko, Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine
• Yuliia Fediv, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation
• Vadym Boychenko, the Mayor of Mariupol
• Yuriy Fomichev, the Mayor of Slavutych

"The new roles will allow cities to implement modern cultural projects. And thus turn Mariupol and Slavutych not only into magnet cities within the region, but also the whole country. Both cities, led by mayors Vadym Boychenko and Yuri Fomichev, have prepared a range of events: creative venues, festivals and art initiatives designed to develop the tourism and cultural potential of local communities. And although due to the coronavirus pandemic they had to postpone the implementation of their initiatives for a year, we hope that in 2021 everything will succeed"- said Alexander Tkachenko, Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine.

“Back in 2016, when Ukraine joined the European Union's Creative Europe program, we learned about the European Capital of Culture program and took the initiative to involve Ukrainian cities in it. However, they received the answer that for this purpose Ukraine must first launch its own national program to identify cultural capitals. We aimed for it for a long time, but last year the first competition for the first two capitals - grand and small - took place. Objective reasons prevented the implementation of projects in 2020, but I am sure that in 2021 we will celebrate the victory over the coronavirus in two cultural capitals of Ukraine and will have the opportunity to travel, starting from Mariupol or Slavutych" - Yulia Fediv said, executive director of UCF.

The package of initiatives of Mariupol - the Great Cultural Capital - was presented by the mayor Vadym Boychenko and the deputy mayor Alexander Kochurin. The central concept created by the Mariupol team is dialogue. With the help of the language of art, the city seeks to speak to the whole country about the union of values. The package of initiatives of the Great Cultural Capital will include eleven events. Among them: open museum festival "Night of Museums", special event "Road Home", created under the direction of Vlad Troitsky, Marathon of International Residences, children's festival "Space of Dreams", book festival Mariupol Open Book, festival of classical music Mariupol Classic, festival of generations Generation House and so on.

Mayor of Slavutych - Small Cultural Capital - Yuri Fomichev presented the ideas of his city. The concept of the city's initiative package reflects the slogan "Slavutych: this [to be] country!". It contains both the desire of the Small Cultural Capital to be open to guests from other cities and regions, and philosophical considerations about culture as something that determines the "to be or not to be" a person or a country in general. Projects planned for implementation will include Open Format Art Residence, SESAM 2021 Poliklinika - an international seminar for students of architecture, the International Festival of Youth Democracy, Television, Press and Creativity "Golden Autumn of Slavutych", the international festival for the elderly GOLDenFest.

The further implementation of the package of initiatives of the cities-winners of the program "Cultural Capitals of Ukraine" can be followed on the official websites of city administrations, as well as on their pages in social networks Mariupol and Slavutych.