 Source: HRO.org (info) Echo of Perm, quoting Tatyana Kursina, executive director of the Perm-36 Memorial Center for the History of Political Repression, reports that the decision to cancel the event was taken by the Public Council of Pilorama on Friday. The cancellation is due to a shortfall in funding. Last week, on the basis of the figures for the first half of the year, a decision was taken to reduce the budget of Perm’s Ministry of Culture, as a result of which the budget for the Pilorama Civic Forum was cut in half. According to Tatyana Kursina, the Forum costs 8.5-9 million roubles, and most of the money (5 million roubles each year) comes from the regional budget. This sum has now been cut to 2.5 million roubles. "This is very bad news. We’ve tried to cover the shortfall in funding, but we’ve realised that it’s impossible in the two weeks we have left,” Tatyana Kursina told Echo of Perm. The programme is ready, and this year it has matured into a worthwhile, intelligent, multi-genre project with a contemporary format. But the infrastructure isn’t ready, particularly given that we were criticised for not having a toilet for each participant…We can’t prepare the site with the money we’ve now been allocated, and so the event’s Public Council took the reasonable decision not to hold the Forum at all this year.” Tatyana Kursina acknowledged that this news would damage the reputation of the festival’s organisers. “I find it hard to imagine how this news will be received by the international community,” said Tatyana Kursina. The Perm-based Youth Memorial, which organises a volunteer camp every year during the Forum, is a long-standing participant of Pilorama. Robert Latypov, head of the organisation, reacted sharply to the news: “The whole thing is absurd – I’m so tired of it all. I’ve only just come back from our expedition, “Along the Rivers of Memory”, and while I was away I sometimes wondered about whether I should return to the civilised world, because I never hear any good news from there. It’s very sad". According to Tatyana Kursina, Pilorama-2014 will take place no matter what. “Under no circumstances should we give up on this project. We should draw conclusions from what has happened, take whatever steps are needed well in advance and hold talks with all the participants and the administration, not least so that we know how to avoid a similar situation next year.” |
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