#14 - JRL 7305
Parlamentskaya Gazeta
No. 158
August 28, 2003
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
ST. PETERSBURG MAY BECOME THE COUNTRY'S MODEL CITY
By Viktor TERENTYEV

At a round-table discussion in St. Petersburg, the Project Committee, a public organisation set up by well-known scientists of the city, submitted a project called "A Federal Dimension - to St. Petersburg." When the project is made public, it will be sent to the commission chaired by the president's aide Igor Shuvalov.

This commission is in fact a new centre to work out a programme of the country's strategic development, which was set up under the president's administration recently. It is quite possible that a nationwide campaign to resolve three main problems of Russia, i.e., poverty, modernisation of the army and the GDP growth, will be launched in St. Petersburg.

According to Dmitry Cherneiko, coordinator of the project, "the city will become a testing range for resolving nationwide tasks. It has strength and possibilities for this. The main thing here are people who understand this. Moreover, negotiations with businessmen have shown that they are ready to start the implementation of our project."

The election programme of Valentina Matviyenko, candidate for the post of St. Petersburg's governor, is based on the Project Committee's proposals. There is also a draft plan of work for the future St. Petersburg administration which deals with all spheres of the city's life - from the municipal economy to international relations.

As regards concrete points of the draft plan, scientists have gone here even further than the president's ambitious plans. They suggest that the GDP should be doubled within four years, and not within 7-8 years.

In Dmitry Cherneiko's words, "St. Petersburg has been like a besieged fortress until recently. It has been trying to demonstrate its individuality in every possible way, but instead has been turning into an ordinary provincial town of the Russian Federation. Today, in the light of recent political events in this country, St. Petersburg, as an intellectual capital, should become a generator of ideas. Meanwhile, Moscow, as the administrative centre, may extend these ideas and technologies to the rest of Russia."