President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Friends, good afternoon.
First, I would like to congratulate all of you, since yesterday’s Builder’s Day is relevant for all of you, in one way or another. Please accept my heartfelt greetings on this occasion. What does it mean to be a construction worker, a builder? The notion itself tells it all. It describes someone who creates. Instead of deconstructing things and taking them apart down to a molecular level, these people do the opposite by creating something. For builders, this is more than a simple act of creation, since what they do consists of creating something that people need, such as housing, infrastructure, manufacturing sites, healthcare and cultural institutions.
Construction workers do the building, but in doing so they rely on plans drafted by specialists who have a creative profession and much in common with artists. Quite often, our country can pride itself on what they produce. Their creations can last centuries while reflecting a specific stage in the history of a specific country or state. This is more than a mere reflection since these creations embody and demonstrate the way people lived during a specific era, serving as an additional stepping stone for generating greater development momentum and moving forward.
As many of you know, I was born and raised in Leningrad. And I remember going to a competition as a teenager – I will not name the city – in a fairly large city. I had barely left Leningrad before that. I arrived, stepped out onto the station square, and was absolutely speechless.
I could never have imagined cities like that. They had plenty of buildings, but there was no real city – just a chaotic sprawl of development. It took me a while to work out why it was so. The thing is, I simply grew up in Leningrad, in the city centre, and I had absorbed that harmony since childhood. I assumed all cities were like that. Only later did I realise how important that harmony, etched in stone, really is. It shapes a person’s way of thinking, even their cultural DNA. That’s how significant your work is.
We are pushing ahead with the country’s spatial development on many fronts. A list of 2,160 anchor communities has been identified, as you know, which are home to 75 percent of Russia’s population. A development programme has been drawn up for these cities and towns, designed to strengthen the country’s economic, social, and infrastructural backbone, and to significantly improve the quality of life and living standards for millions of people. Crucially, it is also meant to support young people’s choice to stay in their hometowns or villages and build their futures there.
I would like to emphasise that active, systematic work is underway across all of these projects and programmes, and promising infrastructure initiatives are being delivered – and the credit for that goes directly to the specialists in the construction industry.
We are here now in the Trans-Baikal Territory, and we are paying particular attention to these areas – especially the Far East. Much has been achieved recently in terms of economic, industrial, and infrastructure development. But if we do not create vibrant public spaces, if we do not create the conditions for people to actually live well, we will not succeed. People will stay here only temporarily, and we will never build a stable environment where people want to put down roots and raise their children.
We have just reviewed the progress of the master plans in the Far Eastern regions. Overall, the pace is steady. I should note that the master plans are designed and implemented with the direct involvement of architects, urbanists, demographers, sociologists, and many other specialists. Of course, this approach is justified, correct and fruitful.
What is really important is that more members of the public should be involved in discussions of such projects. We are doing that, especially with respect to public spaces. The start was small, but the scale is growing. Our colleague Alexander Panin said that, the bigger the town or city, the lower the civic engagement in project selection; conversely, the smaller the town, the higher the percentage of participants. I can understand why: in large residential areas, most decisions are made by local officials. It may even be difficult sometimes to follow public opinion there, although, in my view, spaces like courtyards are also important and should be discussed with residents, especially since this certainly cultivates the feeling of engagement in these changes and builds trust in all levels of power.
I would like to stress a further aspect. When changing and rebuilding cities based on modern trends and using digital technology, we should try to preserve their original appearance and integrate new objects into the existing space wisely. This will maintain the historical feel of Russian cities and towns, their uniqueness, while also continuing and prolonging the life of cultural heritage sites. This multifaceted palette of diverse cities and regions is, without doubt, our legacy.
I thought about my own home town, St Petersburg. Bu t it concerns not only St Petersburg. There are many sites that require special attention from the state. I am confident that as one team, we can maximise the outcome of improving big and small cities, towns, villages and historical settlements here, in the Far East, Siberia, the Arctic, Donbass and Novorossiya – throughout the entire country.
This is essentially what I wanted to say at the beginning. I am at your disposal. Please.
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