Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Vladimir Putin: Good evening. I see you have brought some kind of map?
Yury Luzhkov: Mr Putin, we have many issues to discuss.
Vladimir Putin: How is Moscow coping with the crisis? What is the city's current outlook?
Yury Luzhkov: I'd like to report from the outset that the city's work and affairs are ongoing as in normal conditions. Urban development and construction is continuing. Incidentally, construction in the public and social sector has been 11% greater in the first six months of the year than in the same period in 2009. We are completing all social projects on schedule. We have opened more sports facilities. Our main objective in the city is to provide jobs.
Vladimir Putin: Did you support the builders at the beginning of the year?
Yury Luzhkov: We gave a huge amount of support to the builders. Initially we tried to use budgetary funds to preserve jobs and maintain full business for the building industry. Construction investments have become a little more complicated. But we have maintained the pace of building funded from the budget.
We have also launched another important initiative, the so-called "people's garage" project. Under this initiative, groups of citizens collectively bid and own parking spaces allocated by the city authorities within walking distance of residential areas. This arrangement allows people not to keep their cars in makeshift sheds, but in civilised conditions, owning the garage collectively and the places where they park their cars individually.
Very many people - up to 60,000 - have decided to invest in the building of these "people's garages." It is a major programme.
Vladimir Putin: What about the prices, considering the economic situation? Do you manage to reduce prices?
Yury Luzhkov: Yes, of course. Let me finish with the "people's garage" story. It is a very large-scale programme. We propose to build 5 million square metres of such space a year. This is not as complicated as building residential stock, but it taps people's money to solve the tasks that the people set before us.
If you park your car in the street it is a constant worry lest something happen to it. Instead we propose 18 different sizes of "people's garages" for 150-200-300 cars. We offer preferences, land is free, only the rent is charged. The city helps to lay all the service lines.
The cost for the car owner is in the neighbourhood of 350,000 roubles. That is several times cheaper than the commercial garages. It is a good project.
We are about to close the issue of those defrauded in house-building, as we promised you during the visit to Kurkino. We are fulfilling this promise in Moscow this year. It is a unique situation in Russia. We will close this issue in Russia for the first time. We are talking about families which have decided to pay investors to build houses so that they could move into individual apartments, but ran into developers who...
Vladimir Putin: Who proved to be crooks.
Yury Luzhkov: ... such as Social Initiative. 3,371 families were involved. That was a major problem. But apart from cheated investors there were also partners who had invested money into 5-10 apartments. Because a developer offered a cheap wholesale price the partners decided to make some money by selling these apartments on. To these people we say: "You are not cheated investors, you are partners." But they account for fractions of a percentage point.
As for all the others, we are dealing with the issue. On Saturday we are introducing a huge residential complex for cheated partners. The last major complex on Leninsky Prospekt is to be completed shortly.
Vladimir Putin: So, our earlier agreements are being fulfilled?
Yury Luzhkov: And also on sports. You remember that I reported to you about fitness centres. We introduced 55 fitness centres last year. This year we already introduced 26. These are absolutely necessary for young people, very good for children.
We have decided to make all the fitness centres, all the cultural and social amenities accessible to disabled people in the Equal Opportunities Year (the year of support of the disabled).
It is a massive programme, very large-scale and complicated. One has to overcome the deep-seated attitudes that go back to the Soviet times when disabled people were ignored. It is a very serious programme and we pursue it very seriously.
Vladimir Putin: How many years will the programme take to complete?
Yury Luzhkov: It is a phased programme: cultural facilities this year, removing all the barriers from pavements next year. As it is, a disabled person in a wheelchair cannot ride off a pavement because there is no ramp. A woman with a pram has the same problems. The houses should have not only ramps but also lifts because the residential and other buildings did not take disabled people into account. So we provide space so that a disabled person could ascend the landing and then enter the lift normally.
There was a problem with lifts. It is not yet completely solved but we are tackling it. It turned out that the standard wheelchair is too big to enter the new lifts.
These problems keep surfacing in connection with the Equal Opportunities Year.
As for the economic situation, we pay great attention to preserving jobs. Of course, the situation has not improved, but unemployment today is 0.87% and new vacancies outnumber lost jobs many times over. The Labour and Employment Department is working, vacancies fairs are held constantly to preserve the level of employment.
And I must say that we have hit a plateau (it is all in my materials here). Of course, we have no illusions because it is summer and the stabilisation is seasonal.
Vladimir Putin: Are you working with the Government on that?
Yury Luzhkov: Yes, we are working very well with the Government. The federal authorities and the federal ministries are very cooperative.
Vladimir Putin: In other words, it is a joint programme?
Yury Luzhkov: Yes, it is a joint programme and we are taking joint measures. You have allocated additional resources for retraining and all this works well.
Vladimir Putin: Unemployment peaked in April, didn't it? And then it began to decline.
Yury Luzhkov: Yes, the peak was in April and then it stopped growing.