Karelia

The anniversary, as with all republican anniversaries of the Russian Federation, has been increasingly downplayed and adjoined with other themes.

Residents of the village of Kinnas (Kindasovo) in Karelia are categorically against their village being turned into a centre for ethnotourism.

At the Media Centre for Karelian, Finnish and Vepsian Resources in the Republic of Karelia, it was reported that tours in Veps are becoming increasingly popular.

On the eve of the presidential elections in the Russian Federation on 19 March, the initiative group 'Karelian language to be given official status' wrote an open letter to the local electoral commission proposing that the ballot papers be in Karelian and Veps.

Paradoxically, according to the Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation, the highest crime rates were in Komi and Karelia, with 213.2 and 210.1 recorded crimes …

On this day in 2009, the President of the Republic of Finland, Tarja Halonen, adopted a decision to grant Karelian the status of a minority …

On 7 November, the Alexander Glazunov State Conservatory in Petrozavodsk held a jubilee evening to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Department of Music of Finno-Ugric Peoples.

Igor Sofonov, a career criminal from the Russian Republic of Karelia, is suspected of killing six residents of the village of Derevyannoye near Petrozavodsk, The Barents Observer reports.

Nikolai Patrushev, Executive Director of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, told a meeting on security issues in Petrozavodsk on 31 July that foreign special services are destabilising the socio-political situation in the Republic of Karelia, provoking riots and supporting separatist sentiments, especially among young people.