Pereslavl-Zalessky is a small, albeit ancient city 140 kilometers northeast of Moscow. Now it is included in the routes of the "Golden Ring", but it does not flourish at all: buses with tourists disappear, checking out at the main monuments and the Chapel "Cross", and the tourist infrastructure is limited (in addition to museums) to a couple of stalls with nesting dolls, several restaurants and a couple of bridges on the lake … There is little work, people are leaving the city.
The Pereslavl-Zalessky development project was developed by architect Daniel Dendra (anOtherArhictect) and Peter Kudryavtsev (TDI). This work was initiated by the Golden Ring Development Corporation, which is part of the Rusresorts investment company, which specializes in the development of Russian tourism infrastructure. The idea arose about a year ago, and the first version of the project was shown in the fall of 2011 at the tourism forum in Yaroslavl. Over the past six months, the authors have added a lot of details to the project and now, according to them, this is a product of a different level. So, Kudryavtsev and Dendra told Arch Moscow what exactly is planned to be done and how it can be done.
Pereslavl-Zalessky was chosen for several reasons. Firstly, this city is located almost at an equal distance from the rest of the cities of the Golden Ring, that is, it can successfully serve as a starting point for many tourist routes. Secondly, Lake Pleshcheyevo and the national park around it could attract many tourists, but now they are practically not used. And finally, in Pereslavl, on a small territory, many architectural monuments have been collected, starting from the ramparts and the white-stone cathedral of the times of Yuri Dolgoruky - therefore, it has great potential.
The project is a study that smoothly flows into the concept of tourism development in the city for five years. We carefully walked around the city with a camera, recorded everything that is available at the moment (avoiding museums and monuments, but looking only at the “banal” urban space), namely: the legendary “blue stone”, generously watered with paint so as not to lose its attractiveness, fences, trays with nesting dolls. Samples of rare military equipment, antique cars and even a steam locomotive. Then they compared Pereslavl to European lake resorts and determined what exactly the city lacks in order to attract tourist flows.
One of the main and obvious problems turned out to be the most noticeable - the Yaroslavskoe highway passes through the city and cuts it into two parts. The city is noisy, uncomfortable, dusty. Solution: it is necessary to build a bypass road and make the center a pedestrian zone.
The second problem: the city is located next to a giant lake (it still contains a strange fish vendace, overseas herring), on the banks of which there is no developed infrastructure. Simply put, a tourist sees the lake only running uphill from the Goritsky Monastery, bowing to the boat of Peter I. The authors of the concept drew attention to a strip of unused shore near the city center, and suggested creating a city embankment there with a promenade and a cafe, equipping a wild beach to the north of Pereslavl, to build a jetty, and build a bicycle route around the lake. It is proposed to create an educational eco-park at the north-western end of the lake, opposite the city.
The design of public spaces in Pereslavl-Zalessky was also critically assessed by the authors (indeed, the lopsided slabs on the square with the bronze Alexander Nevsky are unattractive, and not only they). The approaches to museums and access routes to water are poorly designed, and there is practically no navigation. Some archaeological sites that could arouse interest among tourists are forgotten and little known, which at the first stage could be solved by marking them on the map. In addition, the city urgently needs to add small architectural forms - stalls, cafes, benches of modern design.
In order to attract tourists to Pereslavl who are not particularly interested in nature and heritage, the authors proposed to create an entertainment park associated with the history of the Golden Ring, or an outlet center for inexpensive international brands - so that the tourist would come for shopping.
While showing the project to reporters, Rusresorts spokesman Sergey Azbarov said that after the oil and automobile industries, tourism is the third most profitable industry in the world. “Crowds of tourists with cameras move around Europe, thanks to them many cities are building their budgets and developing. Russia has no less potential, and possibly more. It would be foolish not to use it. The project, although it is now only a study and a concept, is not aimed at implementation. According to the authors, its implementation will make the city's infrastructure more modern, the city itself more comfortable, new earnings will help maintain the state of the architectural monuments and museums at the proper level. In the future, according to Sergei Azbarov, all this should lead to the appearance in Pereslavl-Zalessky of new, modern, high-quality (and also - we hope so, smart and delicate) architecture.
