Karelia is a republic of the Russian Federation with an area of 180, 5 thousand km² and a population of almost 650 thousand people. Geographically, it is located in the north of the western border of the country, and its immediate neighbor on the other side of the demarcation line is Finland. It is in cooperation with this country that it is planned to create a network of hostels in Karelia.
The existence of very specific plans for the construction of hostels in Karjala became known when the first seminar of a new joint project of the two countries was held in the Karelian State Pedagogical Academy. Three Russian universities, two Finnish universities and the Ministry of Education of Karelia are involved in its development, and vocational education institutions will be involved in its implementation. The project is mainly aimed at the development of youth and low-budget Russian-Finnish tourism, therefore it was decided to create a network of budget hotels and hostels in the republic.
However, the goals of the new project are not limited to the development of tourism. The adopted program assumes that during the implementation of the project there will be practical training for children from vocational and technical institutions of the republic. This is a flexible, modular program, in which at different stages training will be carried out in various professions related to the tourism infrastructure. And everything will start with the creation of hostels on the basis of hostels of several pilot educational institutions of Karelia, which are located in five cities - Petrozavodsk, Sortavala, Kostomuksha, Segezha and Olonets. These plans have already been confirmed by the allocation of funds - 431,942 euros have been allocated for the project in the “Cross-Border Cooperation Program within the European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument” (ENPI Karelia).
In addition to the hostels and low-budget hotels themselves, a web portal will be created at the same time, through a centralized system of which it will be possible to reserve places and order various tourist services. Students of Karelian and Finnish educational institutions will also work on the development, launch and subsequent maintenance of the portal.
