Rustam Minnikhanov: We have to clear up the centre of Kazan especially on the threshold of Universiade 2013 when Tatarstan capital will host the world

RT Premier Ildar Khalikov held session of RT Cabinet dedicated to measures on increasing quality of planning and development of the territories and improvement of architectural space image of city districts and settlements in Tatarstan.

The session took place in House of RT Government with participation of the President Rustam Minnikhanov.

Minister of construction, architecture and housing Irek Faizullin made a key report at the session. One of the problems raised by him was “why given the increasing rates of construction the quality of city environment decreases, “faceless” buildings appear in the cities more and more often. Why the increase of random nature upon developing territories and breach of city planning requirements are observed.

By words of Irek Faizullin currently when the building activity in cities is very intensive centres lose their historical appearance. The so-called “ensemble principle” of city development requires more serious approach to designing and high level of planning. Field revisions show multiple breaches of city planning code. Very often it is the result of mistakes of relevant departments in municipal formations.

By words of Irek Faizullin the towns which managed to maintain historical appearance are island-town Sviyazhsk, Bulgar, Elabuga, Chistopol. As far as capital of Republic is concerned, it needs special attention. The centre of Kazan is a problematic issue because it is losing its historical value.

Minister of construction noted that today three-stage planning is observed in many cities. Such standards should be adopted in republic as well. He believes that activity in the sphere of city planning and architecture should become public and reported in mass media more widely.

Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of info and communications Nikolay Nikiforov reported on organization of works on changing hanging communication lines to underground cables in big cities. By words of Nikolay Nikiforov revisions showed that heads of managing companies and Homeowners Association do not know whose cables are located on roofs of the houses. Ways of fixing such cables also give rise to complaints. By and large about 3 000 km of cables in republic are to be changed to underground ones.

Deputy Chairman of Tatarstan regional organization of All-Russia association for protecting cultural and historical monuments, honored architect of the Republic of Tatarstan Farida Zabirova told about the problem of maintaining architectural image within the limits of architectural development of historical settlements in RT. She reminded that earlier 13 Tatarstan towns were included into the list of historical settlements. According to the latest data only Elabuga and Chistopol are now in this list.

Farida Zabirova informed that a historical-cultural structure of RT was developed. The following towns may be included in this structure – Arsk, Agryz, Zainsk, Kukmor, Rybnaya Sloboda and others. By her words, architects decided to assess the quality of 100 new buildings. Only 8 % of them received high assessment, 29 % - average, 39% - low, 25 % - the lowest.

Chief architect of Almetievsk Almas Idrisov made report “experience of planning complex town development by the example of Almetievsk town”.

RT President Rustam Minnikhanov summarized the session. “Today issues of maintaining architectural appearance of cities, adherence to architectural code, increase of quality in planning and development of territories are worked out not well enough. In some cases we have to find ways to keep and restore old houses, but not demolish them. Very often we justify our mistakes by doing nothing”, - he said.

According to Rustam Minnikhanov one of priority tasks today is to clear up the centre of Kazan especially on the threshold of Universiade 2013 when Tatarstan capital will host the world. The special feature of Kazan is its history. “We, officials are guilty of investors building new objects which deface appearance of the city in chase of profit. We need more exact position in this issue”, - RT President said.