The new Center for Support of Indigenous Peoples and the public diplomacy "Nuori Karjala" ("Young Karelia") was registered in Karelia. The center would become a receiver of the youth national organization "Nuori Karjala", which ceased its activity after the Russian Ministry of Justice has registered it as a "foreign agents", and Petrozavodsk City Court forcibly upheld that decision.
"The aim of the organization will contribute to the preservation, development and popularization of Karelian, Vepsian and Finnish languages. But now we consider our Finno-Ugric peoples as indigenous, and will promote the values of the UN and international law on indigenous peoples. The Finno-Ugric cultural cooperation remains a priority," Tsykarev said.
According to him, in the near future, "Nuori Karjala" plans to public a rap album in the Karelian language, organize traditional ethno parties, participate in the Congress of Karelia and the World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples.
"Nuori Karjala" was created in 1993 by a group of creative youth of Petrozavodsk – the students of the Faculty of Baltic and Finnish Philology and Culture of Petrozavodsk State University. The main statutory objective of creating "Young Karelia" was the preservation of the culture and languages of indigenous peoples of the Baltic and Finnish peoples of Karelia: Karelian, Finnish and Ves. In June 2015, the Russian Ministry of Justice registered the organization as a "foreign agent".
The law of foreign agents NGOs have been operating in Russia since 2012. It requires organizations engaged in political activity and receiving funding from abroad to register in the list of foreign agents. Since 2015 the Ministry of Justice has the right to register NGOs forcibly.
