Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Governor of Nizhny Novgorod Region Valeriy Shantsev
Valeriy Shantsev: This is one of our projects, Mr Putin (pointing to the mock-up).
Vladimir Putin: What kind of project?
Valeriy Shantsev: It is called "The City". We are developing the territory. You have made a decision on the Northern Bypass. Today we have only one bridge.
Vladimir Putin: I remember, you told me.
Valeriy Shantsev: We have taken the decision on the Northern Bypass. We are designing the third bridge.
Vladimir Putin: How much will the Northern Bypass cost?
Valeriy Shantsev: The low-pressure dam will cost 39 billion roubles, the bridge, 15 billion roubles. The bypass will cost another 50 billion. Then these two territories will have an entirely different development prospect.
Vladimir Putin: And the construction that we saw from the helicopter, where is it? In what place?
Valeriy Shantsev: The Southern Bypass.
When we have done everything, these territories will have a whole new prospect for development, they will get the transport infrastructure, the bridges. We will build a metro bridge here. We have a metro here.
Vladimir Putin: I see, we have some promising sites there.
Valeriy Shantsev: When we ordered a concept to the Italian architect, he proposed the name Globetown.
Vladimir Putin: What language is that? Can't you think of a Russian name?
Valeriy Shantsev: That's what he named it, we call it the Borskaya Poima.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, I think that's right.
Valeriy Shantsev: The area on the bank, here is the Volga River, the flood lands, will be used as a nature park. We want to call it World Park. Here is South America, Europe, Africa and Australia.
There will be low-rise buildings. And further away we will increase the height of buildings. The figures are as follows: 20 million sq m, 50% will be housing, of which 70% economy class and 20% business class and 10% de luxe class.
The remaining 50% will be retailing, sport, recreation and entertainment. So, this is the historical part of the city, you cannot build anything here.
Vladimir Putin: It's a beautiful area.
Valeriy Shantsev: Yes, and we will preserve it. We have set the limit of six storeys. Across the Oka River is Soviet-era development, the GAZ plant and the infrastructure around it. You cannot build anything there either because this is a massive residential area of 5- and 9-storeyed houses. We cannot pull them down because we have no capacity for redevelopment. We should bear in mind that we have to improve the existing residential neighbourhoods. They need to be modernised. So, we end up with the historical part, the Soviet-era part and the city of the future.
Vladimir Putin: What is the overall situation like?
Valeriy Shantsev: In two weeks it will be three years since you appointed me governor. The results are not bad. Absolutely all the indicators have doubled, including the gross regional product, which increased by 93% compared with 2006. While in 2005 it was 299 billion roubles, we are now approaching the 600 billion rouble mark. The average growth rate is 8%.
Vladimir Putin: Almost a doubling.
Valeriy Shantsev: The core of our industry is manufacturing. So, the output in kind has increased from 334 to 665.
Vladimir Putin: What about the social sphere, education and public health?
Valeriy Shantsev: We have doubled financing of education and increased financing of the health care by 2.35 times. We have started building new schools. For the first time we built five new kindergartens last year. We hadn't built a single one in the previous 15 years.
Vladimir Putin: 15 years? And what about the old ones, can they be restored?
Valeriy Shantsev: We will. We have developed a programme.
Vladimir Putin: I have looked at the fact sheet. You have 112, I think.
Valeriy Shantsev: We will build 112 and restore 24.
Vladimir Putin: Over what period of time?
Valeriy Shantsev: We developed a programme to 2012. We have a waiting list of 25,000 children for kindergartens. On the one hand, I am glad that there is a waiting list. It's easier to build kindergartens (than boost the birth rate).
Vladimir Putin: We should be glad that the birth rate is going up. But the fact that they have to wait is bad.
Valeriy Shantsev: We have organised several additional groups in preschool childcare, we have expanded them.
Vladimir Putin: What about private kindergartens?
Valeriy Shantsev: There aren't many of them as yet. We are thinking of how to raise money to pay the nurses perhaps. If the mother has a good and well-paid job and she invites a nanny, we could subsidise part of her pay.
Vladimir Putin: After all, we subsidise the cost of having children in kindergartens. We could subsidise private nannies too.
Valeriy Shantsev: Yes, that is what we are going to do. As for wages, the situation in the public sector is complicated. We have met your target of 14% and we have added 9% from our own budget. This year we raised wages by 23% and they have been paid fully from the very first day.
Vladimir Putin: You mean the region on average?
Valeriy Shantsev: Yes. Beginning from January 1, 2009 we have decided, and we have put it into the draft budget, to allocate 14 billion roubles - it's quite a lot for us - to bring the public sector wages to the regional average. Today it is 60% of the average wage in the economy as a whole.
Vladimir Putin: How much will that be in absolute terms?
Valeriy Shantsev: 14,000-15,000 roubles a month next year.
Vladimir Putin: What will be the increase?
Valeriy Shantsev: About 40% on average.
Vladimir Putin: That will be normal.
