Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin spoke about the development of creative industries in the capital of Russia
It is difficult to imagine the economy of a modern metropolis without the creative sector. Such projects improve the city, and, in turn, the city helps its entrepreneurs grow.
Creative industries usually include such areas of the economy as the art industry, photography, advertising, jewelry, performing arts, printing, publishing, filming, television and radio broadcasting, information technology, software and video game development, musical instrument manufacturing, architecture and engineering, protection of cultural heritage, museum affairs, library services and archiving, design, and creative education.
Designers are directly involved in urban planning, beautification of the city, and public space creation. Their key challenge is to create a proud world-class environment.
“Architects and designers are highly demanded at the city’s new construction sites, because the current requirements for development, architecture, and design have increased manifold,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin emphasised. “The restoration of historical objects is another huge sector. We saw the inflow of orders, and, consequently, hundreds of objects have attracted art historians, architects, designers, chronologists.”
According to the National Research University Higher School of Economics, there are 113,000 organisations and individual entrepreneurs operating in the creative industries in Moscow. Their total revenue exceeds three trillion rubles. Thus, creative industries generate 6.3% of Moscow’s gross regional product. In addition, metropolitan organisations form 54% of the total creative industries market in Russia.
“Everyone in their place must do something that has not been done before them. And do it in such a way that it would be interesting for everyone, to advance your sector, your enterprise, your industry a step forward. The synergy among a huge number of people, infrastructure and urban environment doubtlessly gives us the potential and confidence that Moscow will be one of the world’s creative leaders.”
Sergei Sobyanin
This economy sector companies employ 463,000 people. When adding creative professionals working in other industries, the total number of creative occupations reaches 1.1 million people, which is about 13% of all employed people in the capital of Russia.
The active growth of creative industries is one of the most noticeable features of modern cities. The attractiveness of Moscow for institutions in this area is growing due to many reasons, and one of the key factors is a comfortable urban environment. People of creative occupations relocate to the capital city, because it offers the opportunities, including a quality education, medicine, good public transport, green parks, safe environment, and convenient online and offline services.
Design has become not only a marketing ploy, but also a management tool. “Today, the capacity of the Russian design market is more than a trillion rubles, and the potential is doubling every two or three years. And most of this market belongs to Moscow,” Vitaly Stavitsky, President of the Union of Designers of Russia, emphasised.
According to him, Moscow has a huge potential of exporting design services. Domestic specialists are involved in the automotive industry, manufacturing of telephones and household appliances.
“We have reached the finals (of course, we really hope to win) of the World Design Capital project. This is an achievement comparable to the world championship. There are very few cities like this,” Vitaly Stavitsky added.
From an industry point of view, three large clusters of creative industries have formed in Moscow:
- an information cluster that brings together software and video game developers, publishers and advertisers;
- a media cluster (music, performing arts, cinematography, animation, television and radio broadcasting, art industry, and photography);
- a design cluster (fashion, design, architecture, and jewelry).
Following the request of business, the city is ready to establish new sites for the creative sector while developing new territories and reorganising industrial zones, the area of which reaches 14,000 hectares.
“In fact, this is one of the largest projects aimed at the reorganisation of the city, and probably we will not occupy the whole space with industrial enterprises, it’s absolutely not necessary. But there is a wide range of the opportunities for creative industries, for museum spaces, for filming spaces, for IT people, and so on. We will prepare our offer. And then it depends on the investors, on the desire to do so,” Sergei Sobyanin concluded.
At a meeting with the creative industry representatives, the Mayor of Moscow noted, that the city was ready to create new opportunities to develop design, arts and cinematography, as the creative sector has become an integral part of the metropolitan economy.
The business management center has been successfully launched in Moscow, which will provide consultations to the creative professionals. The open shop project for artists is also expanding.
Evgenia Markova, Director General at Roskino, recalled that Russian cinema has been rated as the seventh major player in the global film distribution market. “90% of production companies are located in Moscow, and filming occupies 18% of the city’s creative sector,” she said. “Movies that have been made here rank in the top 10, top 5 and even number one on Netflix, that had never happened before.”
In 2020 the Government of Moscow established the Creative Industries Agency, which provides support in the following areas:
- international promotion – these are events aimed at popularising creative industries, promoting products and services of the metropolitan creative companies;
- information and analytical support by providing access to analytical research on individual creative sectors (fashion, video games, architecture, design);
- education – acceleration programs, educational seminars, business events (Moscow Film Accelerator, Creative Industries Accelerator, etc.);
- infrastructure development, which includes the organisation of creative tech parks, the implementation of joint projects together with the city’s creative clusters, the support and development of local creative spaces (the first creative tech park, the Design Centre Artplay, was launched with a specialisation in architecture, design and arts; the centre unites more than 400 companies, including over 60 architectural bureaus, 40 design studios, 20 advertising agencies, where Artplay provides workplaces for 3.5 thousand people);
- financial support – compensation of expenses for exhibitions held in Russia and abroad, advertising on the Internet, Internet promotion and delivery of the goods, purchase of the necessary equipment; subsidies for employee training, subsidies and grants for exporters, and grants for animation companies.
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