The duaration of the International Project CHRISTA is coming to an end and a video has been created that reports about the benefits of the partners gained from the project.

The Project CHRISTA “Culture and Heritage for Responsible, Innovative and Sustainable Tourism Actions” is a project of the EU Interreg Europe interregional cooperation programme, which involves partners from nine different regions located in 10 countries of the European Union from April 2016 until now. Latvia is represented by Vidzeme Tourism Association, which has attracted 11 local cooperation partners. They also include the Turaida Museum Reserve, which participates in project activities, as a partner.

The project determined 4 priority themes for action: intangible heritage, industrial heritage, interpretation as well as  digitalization and innovations, for implementaion of which some partners took a leading role. Vidzeme Tourism Association has selected “Digitalization and Innovations” as the main theme. In the course of the project, a pilot project “The lampreys are coming!” took part in Carnikava, which was implemented in cooperation  with partners from Veneto Region in Italy.

The environmental object “The lampreys are coming!” is a virtual reality 3D object, that can be viewed through their own smart devices, using a globally unique application SAN. The aim of the activity is to promote, by innovative means,  fishing - the tradition of the reagion’s intangible cultural heritage and to promote the entrepreneurial activities of lamprey fishermen and bakers and attraction of young people to the processes.

The exchange of experience and familiarity with good practices in different countries played an important role in this project. In autumn 2018, a project partners’ seminar dedicated to the theme of digitalization and innovations took place in Latvia. One of the seminar’s activities was held in the Turaida Museum Reserve, where representatives of the museum informed the cooperation partners about the use of digital solutions, both in the work with  the collections and in the exhibitions, highlighting the importance of creating and applying digital programmes for the new exhibition “On the Way to the State of Latvia. Corvée peasant. Independent farmer. Citizen.”

Project Christa has also been one of  coolaborative partners for THE ECTN (European Cultural Tourism Network) and supporters of the Annual Award Competion. In 2016, the main prize for preservation and promotion of the intangible heritage as a “Sustainable Cultural Tourism Destination” was received by the Turaida Museum Reserve.

VIDEO – results of the Interreg Europe project CHRISTA in Vidzeme. Preservation and protection of natural and cultural heritage values by developing and promoting innovative, sustainable and responsible tourism strategies.