Current Affairs "Prague: European City of Culture" wraps up as a success

The European City of Culture saw more than 380 events held in the Czech capital last year, and the whole project cost almost 800 million Czech crowns. This week the European City of Culture committee held a preliminary evaluation of the project, and labelled it a resounding success. Martin Bartunek is the project's communications manager. Martin Bartunek: Everything was really very successful. It was more than 380 events, from architecture, music, theatre, to multimedia. So in March we have first evaluation of this event. Our opinion is that it was really very successful. Radio Prague: In hindsight do you find that there was something that could have gone on better? MB: Of course, first it's a question of money and the connection between the City Council and the Minister of Culture... very often there is a lot of troubles with this. RP: You mentioned finances as probably the largest obstacle... how were the finances collected? MB: In Prague it was from three resources: First main sponsor was Prague City Council. Second sponsor was the Minister of Culture. And third sponsorship [comes from] private companies. RP: How do the events add up to what happened here in the year 2000, under this festival, as opposed to what happens culturally in Prague every other year? MB: We hope that Prague is European City of Culture not only in the year 2000, but also in every other year. I am a little bit afraid that Czech state and Prague culture isn't able to improve these activities because there is a lot of troubles with the money [for culture] for this year. A lot of organisations, and organisers, and producers contact us for help. So we hope that government and City Council plan to advance these events. RP: What was the aim of your project of "European City of Culture 2000"? MB: Prague and eight other cities like Avignon, Brussels, Bologna, Santiago de Compostela, Krakow and others are working together with the cities in association with the European City of Culture and we organise a lot of international and national events. We try not bring lot of new things but make something like interaction between projects, between multimedia, between exhibitions. For example if we bring exhibition Trojan, we publish the book and CD-ROM for this event; so it's the interaction of these projects. A film documenting 30 events from Prague's involvement in the "European City of Culture" was produced by the committee. It will be shown on Czech TV on Saturday night, and will then be placed in the Prague 1 town archives where Mr. Bartunek believes it will be of great importance to future understanding of Czech society in turn-of-the-millennium Prague.