Vladyslav Atroshenko, Mayor of Chernihiv, and Kimmo Järva, Mayor of Lappeenranta, held an online meeting during which they signed the Twinning Agreement between the two cities.

This is reported by the official website of the Chernihiv City Council.

Mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko called the signing of the Agreement a historic event that marked the beginning of long-term cooperation, and expressed his gratitude to the Finnish side for their support.

“In recent years, Chernihiv has shown the greatest development dynamics among all regional capitals of Ukraine. Unfortunately, our achievements and plans were dashed by the Russian invaders. This means that we have a lot of recovery work ahead of us. I hope that your experience as the climate capital of Finland and a hi-tech leader will contribute to the effective recovery and development of Chernihiv. I sincerely believe that we will have a fruitful partnership in renewable energy, environmental protection, waste processing, green public transport, as well as in education, culture, sports and tourism,” said Vladyslav Atroshenko.

The parties exchanged ideas on future cooperation. The points of contact between the two cities were determined in advance, during previous communications. These are sustainable development, youth policy and education, culture, sports, tourism, cooperation between administrations.

According to Kimmo Järva, Mayor of Lappeenranta, his city has a long tradition of partnerships, dating back to 1940. At the time, Finland was at war and received support from Sweden. Thus, the Swedish city of Örebro became their first partner. Over time, cooperation between them expanded in the directions of culture and education.

Earlier it was reported that the agreements between the Chernihiv municipality and the German city of Aachen as well as the French city of Reims were in the finalising stage.

Chernihiv’s partner cities include Gabrovo (Bulgaria), Hradec Králové ( Czechia), Memmingen (Germany), Petah Tikva (Israel), Prilep (North Macedonia), Ogre (Latvia), Tarnobrzeg (Poland), Rzeszów (Poland), Lappeenranta (Finland).

Establishing partnerships with foreign municipalities and communities can also be helped by the tools specially developed by the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine in cooperation with international programmes and projects:

• “Guidelines on International Municipal Partnership” created jointly by the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development and the Council of Europe Programme “Decentralisation and Public Administration Reform in Ukraine”,
• electronic platform “Partnership for Restoration and Development” developed in cooperation with the Swiss-Ukrainian project “Decentralisation for Improved Democratic Education” (DECIDE) and U-LEAD with Europe Programme.

Municipalities can fill out an application for desired cooperation with a specific foreign municipality on the electronic platform by clicking Cooperate.

In March, the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories of Ukraine initiated the International Marathon of Local Governments aimed at drawing the attention of municipalities around the world to the tragedy of Ukrainian municipalities and boosting the process of establishing sisterly relations.