Karelian Fund Center for International Cooperation

12/10/2022

These difficult times sometimes offer good news!
Today it is especially important to support people-to people contacts and develop initiatives that promote better understanding of each other. With our good friends from Duluth and Minnesota, we are starting a joint project “People of the Lakes”. The project’s main theme is cultural exchange between the native Americans of the Ojibwe tribe and the Karelians of the Olonets region.
How do indigenous people preserve their traditions from being swallowed up by modernity? What ways of organizing life and economy can be successfully applied today? What do two different peoples, separated by vast spaces, but living in similar natural and climatic conditions, have in common?
To answer these questions, the project plans to create a joint documentary film dedicated to the modern life of Ojibwe people and Karelians, teach high school students from the two countries to make their own short films about the life of people on the lakes, develop and present an educational online game on the topic "Sustainable Indigenous Practices" .
People from the Ojibwe tribe are not new to the history of sister city relations between Petrozavodsk and Duluth. In 2007, a joint youth camp for the construction of traditional boats - birch bark canoes and kizhanka boats (pictured) took place in Petrozavodsk. A large delegation of Ojibwe Native Americans came. Today some of them are working with schoolchildren themselves as teachers and mentors, and we hope that they will also take part in our project.
The project partners are Swedish-Karelian Business Information Center and Duluth Sister Cities International. The project is supported by the U.S. Embassy Moscow

10/02/2022

Вместе с партнерами из Торгово-промышленной палаты РК и Институтом лесных, горных и строительных наук ПетрГУ начинаем новую фазу проекта СМСС "Стимулирование деревянного строительства на Севере Европы". Вчера обсудили с предприятиями деревянного домостроения Республики разработку обучающего модуля в области деревянного домостроения. С целью подготовки обучающей программы, начинается работа по изучению насущных потребностей предприятий в сфере подготовки специалистов деревянного домостроения.
Торгово-промышленная палата Республики Карелия

28/01/2022

In 2022 - 2023 Swedish-Karelian Business and Information Centre will continue cooperation with the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) in the field of environmental education.
CLIWATE - this is the name of a new project aimed at the exchange of experience in environmental education of young people in Finland, Karelia and the Arkhangelsk region on the topics: sustainable water use, waste management and climate change. The project will organize environmental camps for young people in Finland and Karelia, a “climate train” from St. Petersburg to Arkhangelsk, accompanied by awareness raising events, a series of online and offline seminars for teachers on all three topics of the project.
The first online meeting will take place in early April this year, at the meeting the Finnish partners will present their achievements in the field of environmental education, and the Russian participants of the meeting will determine their priorities for the project.

Finnish Environment Institute

23/12/2021

🎄🎄🎄

21/12/2021

Feel like making something special for your Christmas dessert table? 🍨🌲🍾
You will enjoy the Karelian Creamy oatmeal with lingonberry confit in crispy baskets with chopped rye chip!
Ingredients:
Oatmeal:
Oatmeal 300 g
Cream 36 % 1 l
Confit:
Lingonberries 400 g
Sugar 200 g
Thyme 2 g
Salt 1 g
Chips:
Rye flour 300 g
Wheat flour 100 g
Kefir 200 g
Vegetable oil 100 g

Oatmeal: pour cooled cream into the blender bowl, whisk the cream until full peaks, then add the oatmeal in portions until you get a creamy oatmeal structure, then transfer to a pastry bag for deposition.

Lingonberry confit: Melt the berries, sugar and thyme in a saucepan until the syrup stage, then cool and beat with the blender until you get a cream of a complete homogeneous structure. Put the mass into a pastry bag and put in the refrigerator for stabilization

Chips: mix rye and wheat flour with kefir until you get homogeneous dough. Put it into the fridge for 20 min. Then roll out the dough for small medallions and fry in a pan preliminary greased.
Put lingonberry confit into baskets (may be purchased at the grocery store, or you may wish to nake them yourself) and pour the oatmeal cream on top, decorate with chips.
Enjoy! 😀

20/12/2021

December this year the Wood construciton partnership led by Nordregio kick-started another yearlong initiative on Accelerating Wood Construction Across the Nordics and Russia.
This time we hope to deliver an important result - bring together businesses and academia and produce a robust training module for companies, working in wooden construction.
Please see some details here
Nordregio

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021, a new step of a journey in wood and construction – Accelerating wood construction across Nordics and Russia - has been launched with an online conference that put thematic partners, organisational partners, and stakeholders of the project together.

15/12/2021

To the fans of the Russian food - presenting the recipes from the Russian crafts master-class in Umea by Ilya Vishnevoy.
Today's recipe - Vinaigrette (beetroot salad) with herring.
(mousse is not necessary, for sophisticated cooks only!)

Ingredients:
Baked potatoes – 300 g
Baked beetroot – 600 g
Baked carrots – 600 g
Kefir 200 g
Salted cucumbers 500 g
Sauerkraut (fermented cabbage) 300 g
Slightly salted herring 200 g
Pepper 3 g
Salt 3 g
Vegetable oil 100 g
Description:
Wash the vegetables thoroughly, warm the oven and bake all the vegetables about 40 min at 180 C. While the vegetables are being baked, dice the cucumbers and grind the cabbage. After the vegetables are ready, let them cool down and then dice them. Leave half of the baked carrots for further cooking the mousse. You will need a blender for mousse cooking.
For mousse: put carrots and kefir into the blender bowl, add salt and pepper and beat until smooth airy mass. Afterwards, put the mass into the pastry bag and keep in the fridge for 30 min. Dice the herring and keep it apart.
Mix all the ingredients except mousse and herring in a deep bowl, add the vegetable oil, salt and pepper if needed, and then lay out the salad into salad molds. Put pieces of herring above the salad and place the mousse nearby. Bon appetite!

13/12/2021

10/12/2021

Check out this short presentation of the two crafts master-classes held recently in Umea and Petrozavodsk.

10/12/2021

https://youtu.be/4RUHqXXIluw
Check out the collection of pics from the two recent crafts master-classes in Umea and Petrozavodsk.

Video presenting the two events, that took place in Umea on November 28th and in Petrozavodsk on December 8th 2021.

09/12/2021

Провели замечательную встречу в режиме телемоста с известным шведским мастером по дереву Йогге Сундквистом. Карельским гостям был показан фильм-размышление Йогге о ремесленном деле, о стремлении сохранить связь времен через традиционное ремесло. Йогге показал свою мастерскую, инструменты - он предпочитает избегать электроинструмента, чтобы лучше чувствовать материал и не терять связь с прошлым.
Книги и материалы, которые участники встречи могли взять с собой, были предоставлены Ассоциацией ремесленников Вестерботтена.
Еще больше погрузиться в шведскую атмосферу помогла презентация блюд шведской кухни, которую подготовил шеф-повар ресторана "Карелия" Илья Вишневой.
Мероприятие прошло при финансовой поддержке Шведского института.
Благодарим коллег из Губернского правления Вестерботтена, Ассоциации ремесленников Вестерботтена, Министерства культуры РК, Национального музея, Продюсерского центра SMK за помощь в организации мероприятия.
Илья Вишневой