How to Preserve and Enhance the Potential of Our Villages

On 23 March, 2017, the village of Yortom hosted the Developing Rural Tourism – Developing Rural Areas workshop for rural tourism facilitators and owners of guesthouses.

The workshop followed the tour across the village that started near Holy Trinity Church and ended in the rural library. It was Elena Budrina, teacher of the Yortom school, who showed all Yortom’s historic and cultural sites and shared her childhood memories about her native village. She was also the one who conducted the training How to Be Successful for the beginning rural tourism facilitators.

The moderator of the event Alina Vaneyeva, head of the Udora branch of the Interregional Public Movement Komi Voytyr, highlighted the significant role of staff of local cultural institutions, in particular librarians, in preserving natural, historical and cultural values of any area. Yortom has done a lot about it already – the local enthusiasts are renovating the old church, a craft workshop and a literary saloon of Galina Butyreva, a famous Komi poet, have been opened in the rural library… All this and many other things can become integral parts of the rural tourist product, and you cannot miss the opportunity.

Valentina Semyashkina, deputy director of the Silver Taiga Foundation, in her presentation Rural Tourism: How to Preserve and Enhance the Potential of our Villages, shared the successful experience of developing rural tours in the adjacent Arkhangelsk region, in Mezen and Pinega districts, where this work has been dealt with for several years already, and such authentic old villages as Kimzha, Lampozhnya and Verkola attract hundreds of tourists.

A guesthouse as a component of the rural tourism was also discussed at the workshop. Guesthouse owners Olga Busheneva (Syolyb) and Nina Beskrovnaya (Patrakovo) spoke about their experience in creating the local tourist product…

It is well known that tourism development is sure to trigger improvement of the rural area and new rise for arts and crafts… The similar initiatives have already been launched in Yortom and other villages of Udora district. No wonder the workshop participants demonstrated so much interest in the speech of Tatyana Tyupenko, member of the Model River Mezen project, who showed the Udora women her hobby – patchwork – she had been practicing for years. The exhibition of the pieces of work created by Tatyana, who participated in many international quilting and knitting festivals, amazed the women. Tatyana presented her works and held a master class for those willing to learn quilting.

After lunch, local librarian G. Matveyeva arranged a poetry marathon there, in Galina Butyreva’s literary saloon, so the workshop participants recited poems by Komi and Russian poets. To conclude, Yortom Recreation center showed a concert of folk singing and dancing groups.