Ворумаа: край языков и традиций Эстонии

County of Estonia

Võru County ( or Võrumaa; ) is a county in southern Estonia. It is bordered by Valga and Põlva counties, Latvia's Alūksne and Ape municipalities, and Russia's Pskov Oblast (making it the only Estonian county to border two countries). The territory of Võrumaa covers and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. In 2022 Võru County had a population of 34,182, 2.6% of the total population in Estonia. The county is subdivided into 12 rural municipalities and one urban municipality, the county capital, Võru.

In Võru County, there are 95.3% Estonians, 3.3% Russians and 1.4% other nationalities. Two indigenous ethnic groups live in Võru County – the Võro people and the Setos. Both ethnic groups have their own language (Võro, Seto) and cultural heritage in traditions.

The Võro Institute is established for the preservation and promotion of the Võro language and culture, which are tightly connected with its historic centre, the rural and mostly agricultural South Eastern Estonian county of Võromaa. The Võro Institute was founded by the Estonian government in 1995. The institute is engaged in a wide range of activities, including establishing school programs, conducting linguistic and regional research, preserving place names and their corresponding stories, publishing Võro language scholarship and school textbooks, and organizing annual language conferences etc. The aim of these activities is to encourage the Võro people to speak their own language and to preserve their characteristic life style. In 2014, the smoke sauna tradition in Võrumaa was added to the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage. Smoke saunas along with sauna rituals are a part of traditional life and cultural heritage of the Võro people. A smoke sauna is an old fashioned rural sauna, which has no chimney.

The purpose of the Seto Institute is to coordinate and promote research in the field of the Seto region and the Seto culture and to introduce the results of the research to the public. The Seto Institute publishes papers, organizes events and organizes education in the field of Seto culture in cooperation with other organizations in the Seto region. In 2009, the Setos’ polyphonic style of folk singing, called leelo, was added to the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage. Believed to be at least 1,000 years old, leelo is considered a special local variant of the Baltic Finnic runo song tradition.