The first graduates of the NLTR (New Leaders of Territorial Development) program, ready to tackle the development of real large territories in Russia, presented projects to improve the life of small towns, industrial areas and rural areas in the Central region of Russia in early August. Each project was carried out by a group of students for nine months.
All projects are, first of all, the results of student practice. They are connected with the real world, real authorities and tasks, but they, with the exception of the Lukhovitsky District project, are proposed to be carried out in such gigantic steps that it becomes difficult to believe that they will be implemented. *** Project "Yakhroma" Vitaly Nemov, Zoya Loseva, Natalya Shkedova, Olga Slinko The goal of the project is to solve the problem of the city of Yakhroma, which, being in close proximity to the largest ski resorts in the Moscow region, is practically not involved in the life of these sports facilities. The project, thanks to the enthusiasm of its creators, is so comprehensive and grandiose that it inevitably takes on a utopian coloration.
The authors propose to build a sports park in Yakhroma, a building that combines housing and the production of food for a healthy diet, sporting goods outlets, hostels and hotels, educational and exhibition grounds, cafes and bars. There is also an agritourism center where city children can get acquainted with rural life, and parents can attend cooking master classes, ride a tractor or rent a garden bed. Farms are also called upon to supply fresh and healthy food to all sports resorts in the area. Residential buildings are planned to be built between the sports park and the agritourism complex.
Project "Industrial Zone" Maria Vinogradova-Frank, Elena Gladkaya, Nadezhda Kiseleva, Anton Kolobakhin, Anastasia Osipova, Yan Yarmoschuk
This project assumes a universal mechanism for reorganizing industrial zones and integrating them into the city on the example of the Avtomotornaya industrial zone in the north of Moscow. The team proposed to create an area that is comfortable for all ages and attractive for investments in two stages, while preserving the existing enterprises.
The first stage is designed for five years and is intended to change the image of the abandoned territory. It includes the creation of the "Engineering Sloboda" with handicraft workshops, small-scale production, offices, an experimentium, exhibition spaces and hostels.
The second stage includes the formation of a full-fledged and integrated district into the city by 2035. There will be residential quarters, transport, social and household infrastructure.
Project "Lukhovitsky District" Boris Filatov, Olesya Polaguta, Tatiana Sutyrina, Sergey Istomin
The authors of this project are driven by high goals: increasing the level of income of the rural population and the formation of a positive attitude towards rural areas and rural life. According to their idea, in five years, the Lukhovitsky district should become an agritourism center of the Moscow region. The group carried out research together with the land user "Lukhovitskie Prostory", which owns more than 25 thousand hectares of land, which is one third of the entire agricultural area of the district.
The program of the first year of implementation of the proposed initiatives included a project to create an open wildlife park in Lukhovitsy.
The second flagship project for the development of the territory is intended to be the project "House of Farming and Hospitality of the Moscow Region" with a creative event platform and a business school in the rural settlement of Grigorievskoye.
Project "Kondrovo" Alexey Kondrashov, Alexandra Kormushina, Alexey Stepanov, Maria Sedletskaya, Vladimir Fenichev
Kondrovo is known for a three-hundred-year history of producing the highest quality paper. The historic center of the city consists of an ensemble of buildings from the late 19th century, built by the English industrialist Howard. Nikolo-Lenivets is located nearby. At the same time, the city does not have a tourist infrastructure capable of linking agritourism, the history of paper, contemporary art and memorable events of history (standing on the Ugra).
The project proposes the idea of a "New Craftsmanship" - historical buildings and territories can serve as sites for the placement of creative projects and the production of low-tech goods: tiles, wallpaper and hand-made textiles. So it is supposed to combine the idea of the historical past of the area associated with the production of paper (Howard's factory) and tiles (until the 18th century in the Kaluga region, tiles were made from local clay), and contemporary art.
Torzhok Project Konstantin Garanin, Boris Litfakov, Elizaveta Levatskaya, Svetlana Gromyko
According to the project developers, the tourist potential of the city, which is now only a transit point on the Golden Ring route, is high: scientific, cultural, religious, archaeological, water and hiking tourism have all the prerequisites for active development.
This project has fewer specific schemes and achievements than others, and it is difficult to understand what exactly the authors want to create and how, so it seems the least feasible. However, this may be due exclusively to the faulty presentation of the project. The goal of the project in 2014-2015 is to form a tourist flow from Moscow to Torzhok, as well as to increase the interest of local activists and entrepreneurs in the development of tourist services and infrastructure in their city.
The project participants plan to form local teams that will be engaged in the creation and development of local tourist routes, products and services. In addition, the students of the program initiated the creation of a virtual information center, on the creation of which teams from Torzhok, Tver, Moscow and St. Petersburg are already working.
The NLTR (New Leaders of Territorial Development) educational program was launched in November 2013 by the Archpolis Center for Territorial Initiatives in cooperation with the Moscow Architectural School MARSH and the International Institute of Management and Public Administration of the RANEPA. The starting point for creating a new educational project was an acute shortage of specialists with the skills to design and implement economically and socially sustainable projects for the development of Russian territories.
Alex Stolyarik, Director of the NLTR educational program:
“We teach our students not only to develop a beautiful model for the development of the territory, but to involve all stakeholders and communities in the discussion and jointly formulate goals and start implementing strategies with them. Local administration, municipality, activists, private small and medium-sized businesses - all of them are interested in making their life in the localities, in small towns and regions far from the capital, better. It is important to give impetus, form an interested team and start doing. This is the main idea of the program."
Nikita Tokarev, MARCH director:
"As a result, students should get a comprehensive territorial project that will be worked out from all points of view, which means they will have a chance to be continued and implemented outside the educational institution."
