Lithuania is not the only country preparing to have one of its cities picked as a European Capital of Culture. One of the cities of Luxembourg will also share the same title in 2022. Esch-sur-Alzette, the second largest city of Luxembourg has got a great chance of winning since it is the only candidate so far.
The Kaunas team hosted the guests from Esch-sur-Alzette during March 11-13 and made them familiar with the application for Kaunas, looking for starting-points of joint creative partnerships. “Unlike our previous thoughts, Kaunas and Esch-sur-Alzette are quite similar in their academic direction, student dominance, consequences of dead industries and even gastronomy! There are real professionals in the Esch-sur-Alzette team, as this is not their first capital of culture project. I think we can learn a lot from each other in the course of the project and create a true, non-artificial and active partnership”, commented A. Čižauskienė on the visit of the partners.
Esch-sur-Alzette, being the second largest city only a mere twenty minutes distance from the capital city, is quite small with a population of about 30,000 people. Unlike Luxembourg City, where the finance sector is the dominant one, Esch-sur-Alzette has been an industrial city for many years. Quite recently, in 2006, the first national University of Luxembourg was established, with about 6,000 students in various study programmes. The University campus was settled in the post-industrial area of the city, where the steel industry was once actively developed, thus making it a modern centre of education and innovation, adding variety to its urban identity, social structure and urban development.
Ingra Soerd, Andreja Wirtz and Emmanuel Vinchon, who prepared the application on behalf of Esch-sur-Alzette, visited Kaunas. Representatives of the candidate cities generated and discussed common ideas of their agenda that would offer many interesting experiences for residents and guests of both cities as soon as they become a European Capital of Culture.
