Seto Seek Endowment from State for Wedding Tradition

[Äike]

Seto Seek Endowment from State for Wedding Tradition

The Seto people of southeastern Estonia are looking for state funding to be handed out once a year for one couple to help revive the culture's traditional three-day wedding.

Saajad (the becomers), as weddings are called in the local language, include all of the key characteristics of the culture, the news program Aktuaalne Kaamera reported.

The program reported that most young people today do not have the financial means to hold such an extravagant wedding and thus some customs are scrapped. A solution considered in Setomaa is to pay one couple per year a wedding grant that would help them learn the old customs and keep them active.

A similar grant has been paid out for several years on the island of Kihnu, which appears on the UNESCO heritage list.

The funds could come from the Setoland Culture Program financed by the Ministry of Culture, even though it has been halved in recent years.

[Russki]

The only cultural difference between Setos and mainstream Estonians is that they're Russian Orthodox

And this is getting erased by modern Estonia

After the proclamation of independence of Estonia its authorities adopted a policy of Estonification of its population, which eventually led to virtual disappearance of Setos as a distinctive linguistic entity of Estonia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setos

[Russki]

https://vm.ee/ru/node/50642