Arctic Сenter for Epic and Art would be built to demonstrate Russia’s cultural dominance in the Arctic by 2022

MOSCOW, Dec 9, 2019, Pan Pacific Agency. The first stage of the unique Arctic Сenter for Epic and Art to be built in Yakutia by 2022, Aisen Nikolaev, the governor of the Russia’s northern region, said at a press conference in Moscow. According to him, a several cultural institutions would be located on the 30 thousand square meters of the building. The State Philharmonic Hall, the Olonkho Theater, and the Sakha Academic Theater are among them. Olonkho is the name of the folk epos of the Yakuts, which are also called the Sakha people, Pan Pacific Agency reported.

“This international project highlights Russia’s cultural dominance in the Arctic. We talked a lot about this issue with the country’s leaders and scientists. Today, Russia has a unique chance to show to the world that the culture of the peoples inhabiting the Arctic area for millennia – Russians, Yakuts – has been preserved and developed, unlike the culture of, for example, the Indians of North America,” Aisen Nikolaev said.

The Northern Forum of Sustainable Development (NFSD) was held in Yakutia for the first time in the fall of 2019, bringing together “hundreds of guests from dozens of countries,” he added. NFSD would become an annual event and a one of the promotion tools of the Russian Arctic culture, Yakutia’s governor said.

Republic of the Sakha (Yakutia) is one of the Arctic regions of Russia. 1.6 million square km, or more than half of the territory of Yakutia, are part of the Arctic zone.

Northern Sustainable Development Forum is a part of the international non-government organization of Northern regions’ governors “The Northern Forum”, which was established in 1991 by the governor of the state of Alaska Walter J. Hickel to improve the quality of life and support sustainable development in the cold-climate regions. As of the end of 2018, members of the Northern Forum were 10 Russian regions, state of Alaska (USA), Akureyri (Iceland), Lapland (Finland) and Gangwon province (South Korea).