By Martin Banks - 2nd February 2009
This amounts to a 40 per cent cut in our budget and has clearly come as a big blow
Albertas Barauskas
A programme of events planned by the Lithuanian capital Vilnius to celebrate its status as 2009 European capital of culture has become the latest victim of the financial downturn.
Organisers of the event have admitted that a major budget shortfall means the festival for the coming year will now almost certainly have to be “seriously” cut back.
The Lithuanian government has slashed the budget for cultural events for the coming 12 months from €12m to €7m due mainly to the global economic meltdown.
Albertas Barauskas, spokesman of the year-long festival, said the organisers were now desperately trying to find €2m funding from “a range of sources” in order to run even a reduced festival programme.
He said, “This amounts to a 40 per cent cut in our budget and has clearly come as a big blow. We will do our best to put on a programme but a question mark now hangs over quite a lot of the planned events. I don’t mind admitting that at present we don’t know what’s going to happen and are trying to salvage what we can.”
It is understood that, so far, 16 events have been cancelled, including street theatre and electronic music festivals, as well as a series of debates on Europe.
The latest blow to the organisers came with the recent collapse of Lithuania's flagship airline FlyLAL. The event organisers had a sponsorship contract with FlyLAL worth €1.3m.
FlyLAL, which declared bankruptcy last week, was meant to fly participants to and from Vilnius, providing free tickets, as well as advertising events on its planes.
The financial crisis has left festival organisers scrambling to protect showcase events.
On Tuesday, AFP reported on a story published in the Lithuanian daily Lietuvos Zinios which outlined plans to call-up the country’s armed forces to fly back paintings by national artist Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis currently on display in Kiev.
FlyLAL had been meant to return the paintings which will be the core of a high-profile exhibition starting in June.
The EU designates cities as capitals of culture for a year to offer them a showcase but Lithuania's budget problems have dented Vilnius' status as this year's capital of culture which it shares with the Austrian city of Linz.
Vilnius has received €1.5m from the EU towards the cost of its cultural programme.
Organisers had hoped that the year’s cultural activities would see more than three million visitors to Vilnius.
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