Due to the local and national differences, Pécs, Essen and the Turkish Istanbul even though seemingly had similar; in reality dreamt and organised a sharply different cultural capital programme in 2010. Even the circumstances of winning the title have already showed how many different approaches the applicants can have. While in Germany it was clear that one city from the Ruhr region will set the ECoC flag on its walls and in Turkey Istanbul was the only applicant, in Hungary several rounds were necessary for an international jury to appoint the final winner: Pécs. There is one thing thought that is absolutely common for all three cities and that is success.      

Pécs has introduced itself in the Ruhr-region several times.

The metropolises and the middle-sized city

The German ECoC city; Essen is really only the representative of the cultural metropolis comprising of 53 settlements in the Ruhr-region. In the area the heavy industry became taken over by the cultural and creative industries starting from the mid 1980s and last year utilizing the title given opportunities the region could introduce their cultural produce of the past 25 years for Germany and the whole of Europe.

With its 15 million inhabitants, Istanbul, this several thousand-year-old centre of the empire has a life of its own in Turkey. The highlight cultural year could not prevail because of the sheer size of the metropolis like in Pécs or Essen, but, buy organising the programme Istanbul gave an important sign of its openness and extravert characteristic towards the European Union.   

Next to the two giants it is absolutely clear that Pécs has won the most. After the mining industry has petered out the seat of Baranya county has become a focal point again and it got the chance to introduce its values with an international quality. The urban development projects that came to life in the country have paved the way for the change of the cultural scale.   

Different dimensions, different budgets

It might be read from the hardly comparable budgets that down to its size Pécs had much less financial sources like the other two 2010 cultural capitals. Altogether more than 44 billion HUF, so around 145 million EURO was spent on the project in 5 years' time. The same number in the Ruhr region was around 580 million EURO that includes both the ECoC budget that was handled directly by the management, the own investments of the industrial cities and the sponsorations. Istanbul has spent more than 150 million EURO on the project, but differing from the others they had not planned in advance but the worthy programme elements and investments could land under the aegis of their ECoC project any time during these few years. 

The differences in dimensions and in the budgets is proved the best by the fact that Istanbul has spent around 1.8 billion HUF for its opening ceremony that is almost the same amount of money that Pécs has spent on the entire projects.

Csontváry exhibition in the world famous Pera Museum

Civil participation with volunteer programmes

It is interesting that in the case of both Pécs and Istanbul it were civils who initiated the participation of the cities in the ECoC project. In Germany it was the government who chose the Ruhr region as the metropolis uniting 53 cities. From these, Essen became selected by a „home-competition" to get the ECoC title sharing the attention with the other 52 settlements.  

It is impossible to place a sign of equality between the Hungarian and German civil participation since it is way different to be civil in Hungary or in any other parts of East Europe. While in Pécs a majority of the programmes were organised by the county, or the local governments, or state owned companies, the Germans had the most of their programmes organised by mainly independent institutions.

Around 13 thousand events in 2010

Istanbul has organised more than 6000, the Ruhr region around 5500, and Pécs about 1200 events in the framework of the ECoC programme in 2010. The most successful programme for the Germans was 'Still-Leben' during which a 20 km long part of the highway was closed down attracting more than 3 million people. In Istanbul the acoustic concert of U2 counted as one of the favourites where the Irish band entertained around 100 thousand people. In Pécs the opening ceremony of the title year moved the most of the people; around 15 thousand people celebrated the new (and ECoC) year on the main square at the beginning of January.

When selecting the programmes the German organisers had aimed at introducing the values and creations of their region. The Turkish have placed a strong emphasis on traditions and contemporary arts. Pécs, besides giving a full introduction of its colourful cultural life have also invited several important foreign productions too. 

Clear success of the Pécs ECoC

The seat of Baranya has given a performance in the 2010 ECoC year that exceeded its size and facilities and this is proved by the number of the visitors the city had in the last year. The number of nights tourists have spent in the city increased by 6% in Istanbul, by 13% in the Ruhr region and by 22% in Pécs.

The Hungarian cultural capital has built its relationships and international projects successfully. It is important that breaking with the previous, 25-year ECoC traditions Pécs had already cooperated with Essen and the Ruhr region in the tender stage. 

Another remarkable thing is that Pécs is the first city in the history of the ECoC that has created a symbolic gift for the upcoming ECoC cities. It is a chain made of the famous Pécs Zsolnay porcelain the central piece of which will always be decorated by the crest of the actually reigning ECoC cities. This crest will always be made by the Pécs Zsolnay factory that has given the first such pieces to the 2011 European Capitals of Culture; the Finnish Turku and the Estonian Tallin.