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Putin sees Europe summit for Petersburg birthday
MOSCOW, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed on Wednesday that all the leaders of the European Union be invited to St Petersburg for a grand summit next year, when the imperial capital holds a 300th birthday celebration.
Putin, once deputy mayor of St Petersburg, often promotes his home city, which despite elegant baroque streets and world class museums has fallen on hard times, missing out on the post-Soviet investment boom seen in Moscow.
He has hosted world leaders there, including Britain's Tony Blair, Germany's Gerhard Schroeder and France's Jacques Chirac, often for informal meetings or arts premiers that contrast with official summits in stuffier Moscow.
As a sign of how seriously he takes the anniversary event, Putin summoned top cabinet ministers for a meeting of committees planning St Petersburg's 300th anniversary, as well as a smaller party marking the 1000th birthday of Kazan, on the Volga River.
"Both celebrations are events on a national scale. St Petersburg and Kazan both played important historical roles in the establishment of the Russian state," Putin told dignitaries at the meeting.
Russian news agencies quoted him later as saying he hoped to invite the heads of all European Union countries for the St Petersburg fete in May next year.
The anniversary falls during the "white nights," when St Petersburg's long northern summer evenings are traditionally filled by a performing arts festival and crowds of revellers throng its stately canals and bridges.
Russia is spending $387 million this year to fix St Petersburg up ahead of the anniversary, sprucing up monuments and working on a ring road to direct traffic away from the historic centre, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told reporters.
Kazan will get about one-tenth as much.
But Kirill Lavrov, director of St Petersburg's top drama theatre, warned that the city needs serious work before it can easily accommodate huge crowds of VIPs.
"Our city, St Petersburg, is somewhat rundown," he told reporters after the meeting. "We will be able to paint the facades, but many of the city's problems run deeper."
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