Narva City Government (Estonia) in cooperation with the Administration of MF «City Ivangorod» (Russian Federation) implemented joint activities in the framework of the European Cooperation Day www.ecday.eu on September 21, which has been celebrated all over Europe for the first time. More than 100 public events took place during the week of 17-23 September all over Europe in order to support cooperation and development of friendly relations.

The main objective of the event under the slogan “Sharing borders, growing closer” was to demonstrate the achievements of the European cooperation projects.

There are four Narva-Ivangorod common projects running at the moment. One of them, “The Unique Estonian-Russian fortresses ensemble development as a single tourist product”, is aimed at reconstruction of Narva Castle Park as well as construction of access roads to Ivangorod fortress. The second, „Development of historical riverside protection area in Narva/Estonia and Ivangorod/Russia II stage” or shortly „River promenades II” aims at reconstruction of the upper level of Dark Garden Park in Narva and construction of the part of the river promenade located to the north of the fortress in Ivangorod. The third project, „Development of the unique Narva-Ivangorod trans-border fortresses ensemble as a single cultural and tourist object”, is a large-scale project whose main activities are reconstruction of Victoria bastion in Narva, the Small Powder Granary in Ivangorod and making them available for tourists. The forth is „Complex reconstruction border crossing points in Ivangorod and in Narva” is led by the Estonian Ministry of the Interior.

The four projects have been approved by the Estonia-Latvia-Russia cross-border cooperation Programme within European Neighbourhood and Partnership instrument 2007-2013. The overarching strategic objective of the Programme is to promote joint development activities for the improvement of the region’s competitiveness by utilising its potential and beneficial location in the cross roads between the EU and Russian Federation. The Programme website: www.estlatrus.eu.

In the framework of the European Cooperation Day different events took place in Narva-Ivangorod cross-border area, including events for children and young people such as drawing competition for children, paper ship floating along the Narva river, launch of balloons and soap bubbles and lightening fires on the river both banks in the evening. More than 100 young people participated in the European Cooperation Day from both Narva and Ivangorod. The participants’ works and photos of the celebration can be viewed on: www.forttour.net in the section II STAGE, Photo Galleries.