Kola Sami Radio in Lovozero has been off-air since 2010 following years of economic difficulties. The radio had debts and the employees did not get salaries, as reported by BarentsObserver three years ago.
The plan now is to resume broadcasting based on self-financing, reports Finugor.ru – the information Centre of Finno-Ugric peoples. Kola Sami Radio has no longer any debts and is ready to reload, based on the studio and equipment in Lovozero, the center of the Sami people in the Russian north.
The radio is now looking for people willing to work for a small salary, until its own income starts to flow.
“We need journalists, technicians, announcers and translators,” says Valentina Sovkina, head of the Sami assembly in the region to Finugor news service.
The plan is to earn money from providing studio recordings for musicians and to get income from producing news.
In the period from 2001 to 2009, Kola Sami Radio got loads of funding from sources abroad, including the Norwegian Sami Parliament, the Norwegian Barents Secretariat, Nordic Council of Ministers and others.
No date is yet announced for when the voice of Sami language again can be tuned in on the Kola Peninsula. The radio will continue its cooperation with Ođđasat, the news service of the Sami radios in northern part of Norway, Sweden and Finland and the only multinational cross-border news service in the Barents Region in addition to BarentsObserver.
