Meeting of Partners

At the beginning of March 2001, Vocational School in Sillamäe organised international festival-competition for partner schools from Kotka, Finland, (Professional Institute) and from Russia St. Petersburg. The motto was "National cooking is one of the means of interaction between countries and people". Participants were teachers and pupils from cooking departments.

The main aims of that event were: cooperation between vocational schools, understanding of cultural traditions through cooking of national dishes, learning about culture, customs, traditions and history of the countries, comparison of professional knowledge and skills as well as improving professional language.

All the participants had to present decorations of their tables and to tell about national special features of dishes.

The winners in modern and stylish decoration of dishes were students from Estonia. Olusterve (Estonia) was good at national special features in cooking, St. Petersburg was rewarded for original taste of dishes and Sillamäe for professional skills. All teams got diplomas and gifts. They had to also answer to different question about their impression of the festival, teams, kitchen equipment, excursions around the vocational school, the city of Sillamäe, the Narva Castle and another culture events.

All Estonian Vocational schools were informed about this event. The cooking competition and some cultural events were recorded and were shown in TV. Photos and films can be used at professionals lessons and as advertisement at cooking departments.

Maybe it will be a good tradition to held such professional competitions of vocational schools and more Baltic towns will take part in them in the nearest future.