From Finland, the project was implemented by the municipality of Rautjärvi and the South Karelia Foundation for Recreation Areas Ekvas. When making the master plan, not a very large number of companies and actors were involved in the work yet. As far as dissemination is concerned, it is necessary to be even more active in reaching out to existing and potential new entrepreneurs.

The old Kangaskoski hydropower plant owned by Ekvas was taken out of use during the project as the first hydro power plant on the Finnish side of the Hiitolanjoki River. A museum is being planned for hydro power plant, so that the culturally and industrially historically valuable building gets a new life and the tourism companies in the area can add content to their tourism products. Proper plans are needed for that. In the museum plan, Granlund Saimaa Oy, as a purchasing service, has now completed the drawings of the various spaces and the plans for their use, as well as the grandstand and technology, as well as the facade. The plan also includes cost estimates to allow the implementation to apply for funding from different sources after the RivTimes project. The largest work package and cost item in the entire project was the demolition of the Kangaskoski dam and the restoration of the rapids. The dam was the first to be demolitioned on the Finnish side of the Hiitolanjoki River, and it is known that demolitions of the same scale had not been carried out anywhere else in Finland before.

Kangaskoski has therefore acted as a pilot and a very successful model for many other rivers and rapids in Finland and around the world. Oteran Oy was responsible for the practical implementation, which kept to the schedule nicely, and the result has attracted a lot of admiration and praise. The dam was dismantled without explosions, unlike in many other countries. In this way, we have been as gentle as possible to natural ecosystems and have been able to better manage the sediments accumulated at the bottom of the river. The costs of dismantling rose considerably from the estimates in the planning phase, and the extra costs were left to be paid by Ekvas.

The materials can be found here: RivTimes

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King’s Road main results are the ecosystem has been developed: the project improved existing cooperation between regional stakeholders (local authorities, business society, historical and culture associations) to some extent on international level and significantly between stakeholders on the Finnish side to a new effective level, awareness and attractiveness of King’s Road has been increased and implementing plenty of marketing activities and producing digital and printed materials, like 360-degree virtual tour of King’s Road, AR mobile King’s Road application,  Reusable 360-degree material for 24 locations, Reusable 3D models of 10 locations, Kyminlinna 1800 VR Museum, 360-degree virtual tour in modern Kyminlinna and  visitkingsroad.fi digital platform.

The project offered business development opportunities for 14 companies by organizing training sessions on Virtual guided tour planning and implementation. Economical and historical value of the King’s Road region was promoted by combining cultural history of King’s Road with modern high-end technological solutions.

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The aim of the project is to develop responsible cross-border history-based tourism by creating new tourist products and services based on our common history and common heritage attracting and developing SME sector in tourism and other related industries.

Project consisted in several parts. The first one is contend development, which included historical research, collection and geolocation of data. Data were collected and archives and libraries in Finland, Sweden in Russia. As a result, two research reports were prepared. Russian research reports was published as online-publication. Report of Finnish researches was published in the Ruralia Institute publication series. Research data was used for the creation of Sprengtporten virtual museum with open access. Biggest part of youth work was organised though creation of virtual museum. https://sprengtportenmuseo.fi/

During the second part of the project on the base of research, the development of new tourist products and services and testing of them together with local tourism business were done. All together 13 local companies participated in the project. Trainings and individual consultation for entrepreneurs were organised. This lead to the new skills development. Among created tourism products and services are local historical beer, historical menus, historical cycling route, Katariina stable inspired by Sprengtporten, etc.

Repairing works are the third part of the project. In Ristiina Brahelinna building was partly reconstructed. Sprengtporten room and library were renovated and new entrance was constructed. In the Business incubator in Vyborg rooms for the workshops and historical exhibition were renovated.

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The goal of the 30MILES RusFin project was to develop cross-border yacht tourism in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland as part of the regional blue economy, increase the number of small and medium-sized companies engaged in yachting, yacht tourism and related business. The project also aimed at creating a network of cooperation in yacht tourism, focused on business and security. The main target groups of the project were boaters, national yacht associations and historical societies, decision makers and experts. The main beneficiaries of the project were leisure and sport boaters and related businesses. The project had a positive impact on the environment and relations between people from neighboring regions.

The two small harbors in Finland and Russia were improved, the cross-border yacht marinas classification, unified requirements for them in service and safety, the safe routes for boaters and the survey of green moorings were developed. The project provided trainings of marine personnel, the development of videos on safety in marinas,  business model of yachting, that will help investors to assess the marine investment projects, internet resources containing regulations in yachting and regional information marketing report, recommendations on routes and recommended marinas for cross-border travelers to visit were developed, within the project were organized the cross–border events – business and sports and tourism, which were implemented within national borders and online formats due to epidemic restrictions and sanctions. One of the most notable regattas in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland – Orange Race and Baltic Wind, were organized, which has got support from the business community and public, become annual and hopefully international in future.

12 marinas have been created and are planned to be created and the project of developing infrastructure for yacht tourism on inland waterways of Russia from St. Petersburg to Arkhangelsk were developed by private business. The project provided information for the Atlas of Waterways for yacht travelers, developed for the Gulf of Finland, Ladoga and Lake Onega.  For both sides – Russian and Finnish – the implementation of the project is important, as it allows to open up new travel opportunities for Finns and yacht travelers from other countries to one of the attractive Baltic cities – St. Petersburg, for Russian boaters to travel to Finland and provides demand for the related business at the Eastern part of Finnish Gulf.

Project results can be found here, 30 Miles RusFin

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The project specific objective was to bring together innovative, research, training and business capacity, resources, best practices and experiences for strengthening investment and business processes in the border areas of Russia and Finland. The project developed a common digital business space based on a service platform with an open, real time collaboration network.

The project achievements were common digitalized investment database: a pool of consolidated, structured and digitally processed information relevant to the project objectives and target groups was created and presented on the project platform as a Practical common digital Russian-Finnish data Model including the interactive information map that allows to get the necessary information of the investment potential of the border regions of Russia and Finland in a modern convenient format. The Common approach in presenting and analyzing of the economic and investment data is definitely something new, which has not been done before, and it will most likely bring new data about the economic potential of the cross-border region and could be used for further investment development in cross-border area and could be used as a model to add other regions.

Developed Common digital space for entrepreneurial and investment activities offered by an open on-line pilot platform in Russian and English providing consolidated relevant information, work services and interaction opportunities for the project target groups: defined the best elements for common digital space model, integrated in the general concept also as all elements, at using of the innovative method for automatically self-assessment of the project ideas by initiators, including the mechanism for discarding obviously ineffective /dead-end project.

Elements/Services as Investment Database; Personal Profile; Assessment of the project ideas and investment attractiveness; Project Showcase; Bringing Together Club: communication service; News etc. were created too. Now the Common Digital Platform is available in two languages. Common Cross-Border Digital platform pilot user community established: now more than 300 users of platform were organized more than 10 networking workshops for target groups. Two Roadmaps for platform community developed: Roadmap for developing a partner network for venture projects; Roadmap for developing a partner network for investment projects. Now it is available in two languages on the project platform and could use as supporting tool for all interested stakeholders, innovators, SMEs, entrepreneurs etc. The Project Target Group includes representatives of Russian and Finnish companies – SMEs, start-ups, entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, business accelerators and support institutions, business experts and mentors, as well as relevant municipal, regional and national authorities. Representatives of the target group were acquainted with the project developments, gave feedback, made suggestions, used and continue to use the project results in their activities. The Educational complex “School of Investment Mentors”, open to all interested parties, was developed.

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The river Vuoksi area has great, but partly untapped opportunities to become an international destination for sustainable tourism.  In the Visit Vuoksi project, the accessibility and visibility of the Vuoksi as a destination for sustainable tourism was developed in different ways: the project created new walking, cycling and water routes and developed a diving site and built boat docks. The project created the river Vuoksi -principles of sustainable tourism and recreational use of the river environment. Also the principles of organizing a sustainable event were created for the use of SME´s and NGO´s. The principles were piloted in the summer and winter events. A short, experiential virtual presentation was made of the river Vuoksi’s story. The project increases visibility of the river Vuoksi as a climate-friendly destination for sustainable tourism. The project improves the quality of the environment and enables a new kind of entrepreneurship by developing the Vuoksi destinations and events.

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The survey of SMEs has been conducted, and it made possible to identify business needs for hidden experts and acceptable conditions for their joint activities. Based on this survey a digital platform as a base for interaction between hidden experts and SMEs in the region has been developed. Over the project period, an understanding has appeared of how the search mechanism for experts should look like for enterprises on both sides of the border. To formulate the exact terms of reference for technical specialists, several round tables were held with experts, specialized organizations and entrepreneurs. Much attention was also paid to the issue of participation of SMEs of the two countries in the field of textile recycling. The study of the potential of the region has begun in terms of the possibility of creating a cluster of SMEs in this area of activity.

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The main goal of the Suvorov routes project was to create a cultural tourism route and tourism products around it, which will be implemented by tourism entrepreneurs and cultural producers in the joint network of actors emerging in Southeast Finland and the Leningrad region. In addition, the goals were to promote the accessibility of objects related to the theme by preparing reports and plans for routes and road infrastructure.

Already during the project, workshops and test trips were organized for tourism entrepreneurs to design the tourism products that would be available during the project. The project itself implemented several Suvorov-themed cultural events and also participated in cultural tourism events organized by others by bringing Suvorov information to them.

As a result of the Suvorov project, the participating Finnish companies got content to implement new tourism products, gathered experience from test trips and networked with other operators. Restaurant companies were able to use new food products to offer to customers. At Suvorov’s sites in the Saimaa area, two boat piers were renewed and picnic tables were built on the canals for the enjoyment of visitors.

The prepared plans for the boat route through historican canals and the new bridge on main road, as well as the feasibility plans for the Vuoksi canal, enable the preparation of investments that improve public tourism and the accessibility of these destinations.

Dokumentary serie “Suvorov in Finland”, videos produced by wellknown history experts and  history professors.

Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5

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The target area of the NaStA project is active in natural stone production and even has a global importance with relation to certain natural stone types. The most important stone types used for the historical buildings in St. Petersburg have been the unique Finnish Rapakivi Granite, which is still produced in the region today. The overall objective of NaStA project was to attract business to invest, locate and operate in the programme area. Special objectives of the project were to support and improve the operational environment of the SMEs by promoting the knowledge on natural stones used in historical constructions, their origin and possible substitutes in restoration works, creation of a framework for logistic cluster and preserving and revitalizing the cultural and historical natural stone heritage and supporting tourism business.

The NaStA focused to collected data of historical natural stone used in buildings and construction in St. Petersburg and in selected cities in Finland. The old quarry areas of these historical stone types were located and mapped in field work. In the same context, alternative new stone deposit areas for the historical stone types of these old quarries were mapped. Alternative sources for the natural stone have been mapped in case that the original stones can no longer be quarried in old quarries. The exact quarry site of the historical natural stones is often unknown. Therefore, tools for identification of similarity of old and fresh new stones were also developed and different chemical methods were tested to achieve the appearance of old historical natural stones for new produced stones. Business opportunities and logistic supply chain were tried to describe and develop.

As achievements of the NaStA project, there are two databases of natural stone objects in the cities, one from the St. Petersburg and one from the selected targets from Southeastern Finland. In addition, there are two databases of old historical quarries and quarry areas, one from Russia and other from Southeastern Finland.

Results and publications: NaStA – Results and publications (gtk.fi)

Video: “The Story of Stone”

The aim of the project was to attract companies to invest, locate and operate in the Southeast Finland – Russia CBC region. The project aspired to improve sustainable economic growth in the cross-border region by supporting entrepreneurship and business cooperation in the field of biotechnology and circular economy. The project aimed to increase cooperation between companies and the capacity to create new businesses and commercialise scientific research results. In general, the objective was to improve the skills and competitiveness of Finnish and Russian companies and actors in the biotechnology and circular economy sector to enable them to succeed in cross-border markets.

The activies were targeted to companies, university students, researchers and experts of biotechnology and circular economy sectors in Finland and Russia. The project activities were implemented between two strategic Finnish-Russian alliances: 1) the universities ITMO and Xamk and 2) the business development organisations MikseiMikkeli and AsEP, which in turn worked in close cooperation with each other. The project consortium worked smoothly together – the universities provided courses, competitions, hachatons, lectures and acceleration program for students and businesses, improving their business skills and stimulating new innovations.

The business development companies supported the growth and internationalization of new and existing companies, provided up-to-date market information, created important networks and contacts for companies and developed the digital EcoSairila platform to make the EcoSairila concept internationally more usable as a testing, piloting and learning environment. The business development organisations organised a large number of match making events for Finnish and Russian companies and represented companies at the EBC exhibition in St Petersburg. They promoted also actively cooperation with other projects and major players in the sector. Thanks to the awareness raising activities and organised visits to EcoSairila, the EcoSairila concept e.g. digital EcoSairila platform became a significant international platform for circular economy activities and communication in South Savo region, which will continue to operate after the end of the project. Generally public awareness of the circular economy was widely promoted, for example through cooperation with educational institutions.

As the political situation changed significantly in spring 2022, the duration of the project and the measures had to be reassessed. The project remained with the Finnish project partners MikseiMIkkeli and Xamk. Central Asia became the new target area and the geographical scope of the project was also extended within Finland outside South-East Finland. The cooperation with Estonian actors was also started. An comprehensive and concrete market survey of the Central Asian biotechnology and circular economymarket opportunities and specifities was prepared and published for the use of companies. The project objectives were achieved, with a different geographical area than planned.

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