{"id":1058,"date":"2023-10-08T10:04:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-08T07:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irmzp.org.ua\/uk\/?p=1058"},"modified":"2023-10-24T13:48:09","modified_gmt":"2023-10-24T10:48:09","slug":"na-chasi-lahti-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irmzp.org.ua\/en\/na-chasi-lahti-video\/","title":{"rendered":"Seventy years of town twinning with Lahti"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last year, Zaporizhzhia and the Finnish city of Lahti resumed active twinning relations. Today, the partners are helping us respond to the challenges of the ongoing war. Learn more about the cooperation between the two cities from the video first produced and broadcast by the municipal TV.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lahti became Zaporizhzhia\u2019s first twin city seventy years ago. The two municipalities signed a partnership agreement in 1953 at the initiative of the Finns. It all began due to a translation error, as Viktoriia Agientaieva, director of the City Development Institute of Zaporizhzhia<\/strong>, explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEach city has its own unique story of twinning and how it came to be,\u201d<\/em> says Viktoriia Agientaieva. \u201cWith the city of Lahti, it started with a translator\u2019s error when the Finnish city sent its request. They were looking for a city of carpenters, while we were a city of steelworkers. We became friends because of this mistake, and only later realised that we had slightly different industries. Nevertheless, our cooperation has continued to this day.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has rekindled the friendship between these two cities that began seventy years ago. During the war, Lahti hosted around two thousand refugees from Ukraine, including families from Zaporizhzhia and Melitopol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September, an official delegation from Zaporizhzhia visited Finland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnfortunately, over the past few years or decades, we have not worked as closely together,\u201d <\/em>says the director of the City Development Institute. \u201cTherefore, we decided to establish direct communication, re-signed a partnership memorandum, and prepared a detailed action plan for the next two years, covering various areas. Among them are culture, education, emergency response, information and communication, as well as cooperation for the post-war reconstruction of Zaporizhzhia.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, experts from Finland are helping Zaporizhzhia\u2019s institutions properly prepare project documentation to receive EU funds for the reconstruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeikko is a Finnish company with 30 offices worldwide, and they are ready to involve their specialists in preparing project documentation. They will also conduct workshops for students and companies. Last week, we gathered information from our engineering and construction firms, and three or four of them have agreed to participate. We have forwarded their contact details to our Finnish partners, and I believe that we will soon have some online collaboration.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first results of the partnership between Zaporizhzhia and Lahti will be announced in the near future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The text was originally published on the website of the MTM TV channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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