Vektor Provinz

The project ‘Vektor Provinz’ was created by a group of former Robert Bosch Cultural Managers in the Russian Federation and their partners and host institutions. The project began in the northern Russian town of Arkhangelsk and focused on significant regional cultural developments in Russia and Germany.

Kick-off event for ‘Vektor Provinz’ took place in June 2016. The forum addressed contemporary migration trends in many Russian regions and in provincial areas in Western Europe. One significant trend is that young, well-educated people have been moving to metropolitan centres with a wide range of cultural and social events in order to study, work, and live. For example, many young people have been moving away from the Arkhangelsk region in north-western Russia to big cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg; in Germany, many young people have been moving away from small towns to Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, and Munich. The forum sought to initiate an open discussion about the possible reasons for and potential cultural effects of this migration trend. One main goal was to find similarities between Russia and Germany and to develop methods and common projects to improve the prospects for young, creative people involved in cultural life in their home regions.

The forum in Arkhangelsk was organized in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture of the Arkhangelsk Region and the Dobroljubov Regional Library. Participants of the forum also visited the famous Panova Street Theatre Festival, a major cultural event that takes place annually during the white nights at various open-air venues.

A project organized by Barbara Anna Bernsmeier and Felix Oldewage in cooperation with Cornelia Reichel, Kathrin Oerters, Pavel Andreev, Anna Gamulina, Sergey Taraskin and Anton Valkovsky