Hello and welcome once again to our semestrial informative bulletin on the RESTART_4Danube project, with a general focus on Creative Industries and Urban Regeneration!

This edition’s introduction is presenting the newly released EUSDR App for mobile phone (called “EUSDR – Danube Region Strategy”) - so that you always stay connected. The first screen that appears is the map of the Danube region, with its comprising countries. Here, if you click a country’s name and flag, general information about it will be shown, like its capital city, population, official language, EU entry date and currency.

At the “Latest News” section, you can activate the notification button, so that you get to know about all the newly published articles in real time.

In order for you not to miss any of the related events, there is the possibility to add them in your calendar.

If this arouses your curiosity and you would like to find out how to contact with EUSDR core stakeholders, take a virtual tour around beautiful Danube sights, learn about delicious national recipes, or get inspiration for touristic cultural routes around the Danube, you can download the App for free and discover the beautiful Danube Region!

Video: Facebook (EUSDR)

In the last newsletter, we started presenting to you how RESTART_4Danube partners have begun mapping the cultural and creative industries in the Danube region’s urban communities. The Danubian baseline study is rounding up the mapping activities: It was conducted with the aim to gain better understanding into selected local/urban dynamics of cultural and creative sector in 10 Danubian countries: Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany (Baden-Württemberg), Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine and Slovenia. The study was conducted between October and December 2020. The methodology was developed for the purpose and needs of the RESTART_4Danube project. It consisted of two parts – with one part being descriptive in nature, analysing accessible documents about the background of the sectors and using available information to map the existing cultural and Creative ecosystems. The second part of the analysis consisted in discussions (face-to face or via online conferencing tool) with quadruple helix stakeholders about the realities of existing urban ecosystems. A quadruple helix brings together actors from higher education & research, SMEs & enterprises, governance/policy makers and civil society, in order to let all the voices be heard and work towards synthetising answers and solutions proper to the majority.

Ten partner teams worked together with their backing national organisation(s) to gather information for the regional analysis: CUAS, NERDA, CCI-Vratsa with help from Municipality Vratsa, CCE with support from Rijeka and MEEC-MGPO, S2i, PBN with VMÖH, ODIMM with IACH, UPB together with IPA Craiova and LCM Craiova and MDRAP, SASS with help from UM, MOM, MONG, and the last pair of national partners NOVUM with support from Uzhgorod City council). SASS evaluated their assembled information and could synthetise several common traits for the Danube region. Similarities were found regarding the region’s high potential to innovate, positive attitudes towards competition on the market, trust and good connectivity among the CCI actors. Issues mostly appear due to rigid bureaucracy and lack of entrepreneurship, scarce local policies representing CCIs and emigration of talented people.

Last but not least, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the CCIs have been analysed: The pandemic had double impacts – one part of the CCI sector was blossoming (IT, digitalisation), while the other part was left in a state of total paralysis (physical events, visiting sites etc.). The cultural sector still has the opportunity to get at least some advantages out of this hard pandemic period with restrictive lockdowns and evolve – by rethinking its approaches and generating new ideas!

Thank you to all the hard-working RESTART_4Danube partners for this contribution to the Newsletter, and especially to the SASS team from Nova Gorica, Slovenia!

The project partners were very active during the past months. In total 10 workshops were organized in the second period of the project (first half of 2021) – 5 policivil workshops, 4 follower policivil workshops and 1 policy dialogue workshop with the aim of:

• Raising awareness and involving local stakeholders in the preparation of the local action plans
• Strengthening local creative ecosystems
• Raising the political visibility of CCIs and Creative Urban Regeneration

The Municipality of Maribor has begun to actively involve creative industries in the aesthetical urban regeneration of the city. The Municipality established a working group as a starting point for sustainable projects that concern the shaping of public policies. These policies will define the city's approach to graffiti and strive, in the long run, to establish a more pleasant aspect of the city supported by this artistic technique of creation.

The UEFA U21 championship was a unique opportunity for concrete action in this area. As part of the “graffiti festival”, we planned the Graffiti Jam campaign from 29 May to 4 June 2021. We chose the location of the RONDO roundabout on Streliška street in Maribor. This was a neglected area that we wanted to make more attractive with artistic graffiti. This is also part of the legacy of the UEFA U21 project, as the creations will remain, and every year we will organize such a festival (each time at a different location).

The project represents an important step of the city administration to promote the development of graffiti culture in the city and to recognize the dimension of the artistic value of graffiti as street art. We invited established local artists to participate in the project and create artistic graffiti. Together, we determined the content orientation, which was not intended to regulate or restrict artistic freedom, but to a broader context, which indicates the direction of the author's design, namely: football, sports, healthy and sporty lifestyle, competitions.

The venue was opened on June 3, and the opening was hosted by the Mayor of Maribor Saša Arsenovič, the President of the Football Association of Slovenia Radenko Mijatović, the organizing team of UEFA U21 and UEFA venue manager Joanna Greene. Maribor thus received the first legalized wall for graffiti, and at the same time it was also the first realized project within the participatory budget.

Tags and hashtags: Mestna občina Maribor @MOMaribor  UEFA Under-21 Championship @under21 Nogometna zveza Slovenije @NogometnazvezaSlovenije

June 1 is the official holiday of the city of Vratsa. On this day, young and old gather to celebrate and to pay homage to the heroic sacrifices for the freedom of Bulgaria.

From May 24 to June 2, the people of Vratsa have developed the tradition to celebrate their national hero, Hristo Botev, who is a Bulgarian revolutionary, poet and publicist, and who fought for the freedom of Bulgaria from Ottoman slavery.

Botev's days include a rich cultural program: competitions, recitals, exhibitions and concerts. The culmination of the celebrations is the fireworks rally on June 1 on the square named after him and is held under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria.

Since 1946, the National Tourist March "On the Road of the Botev Detachment - Kozloduy-Okolchitsa" is being held annually. The march stretches over 120 kilometers in length and is the largest manifestation of the tourist movement in Bulgaria. Every year, more than 1000 people from all over Bulgaria walk the entire route from Kozloduy to Okolchitsa peak, where they present wreaths and flowers at the place of Botev's death.

In 2020, unfortunately, the March had to be canceled due to pandemic restrictions. However, this year the Mayor of Vratsa Municipality, Mr. Kalin Kamenov, was proud to announce on May 27, 2021 that: “Despite the difficulties, we managed to preserve traditions together!”, giving the start to this year’s march.

Община Враца/Municipality of Vratsa - Facebook

As part of RESTART_4Danube project, a Danurban taskforce is being formed in an – until now – unique and innovative format. The aim of the Danurban taskforce is to discuss urban regeneration issues in the Danube region, to support transnational and cross-helix cooperation, and to come up with hands-on and tailored creative solutions for urban regeneration, while having contributions in many other activities of the project as well.

Each project partner provided one expert from different areas of CCI, who will enhance the future work of the Danurban taskforce with their innovative ideas and suggestions in the development of urban regeneration.

Two working groups were organized to discuss specific innovative models and tools developed by the project partners and to co-define together with the RESTART_4Danube steering committee an operational action plan for the task force.

Now, things have starting to unfold in the project, project partners have scouted their grounds, contacted stakeholders and engaged them in our activities. The consortium has build a stable ground to start changing the Danube region, to sustain the development of the creative industries and put them to good use in the process of urban regeneration.

Exactly as the name says:

RESTART_4Danube
Boosting cREative induSTries in urbAn Regeneration for a stronger Danube region