Literary projects of Kazan won the international competition "The City, where you want to live"

(Kazan City KZN.RU, January 27, Ksenia Shvetsova). Two unique Kazan project - "Literary yards" and the festival "Book Fest" became the winners of the VIII International contest of urban practitioners in the CIS and EAEC "City, where you want to live". The award ceremony is held in Moscow today. This was reported by Head of the Department of Culture of the Executive Committee of the city Aigul Gornysheva to the Mayor of Kazan Ilsur Metshin at a meeting dedicated to the results of 2015.

Recall, the project "Literary yards" started in Kazan June 11, 2014 in the framework of the Year of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Tatarstan. The residents of the city had a unique opportunity to talk with well-known writers, poets, actors, who came to the creative meetings in Kazan yards. The project involved Valentin Gaft, Sergei Bezrukov, Konstantin Habensky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Maria Golubkina, Elvira Bolgova, Dmitry Kharatyan, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt and Tatarstan poets, writers and musicians. Over the past two years in Kazan 50 "Literary yards" were held. As A.Gornysheva assured, in 2016 this project will be continued.

An annual festival "Book Fest" has become the continuation of "yards". It started in 2014. City parks were filled with new content - reading the classics and contemporaries, a book exhibition and literary competitions, as well as book crossing (free exchange of books) that many visitors appreciated.

Aigul Gornysheva also said that thanks to the adjusted book exchange constant readership of city libraries (there are only 50 in Kazan) has increased dramatically. Head of the Department of Culture added that the projects carried out in Kazan in the Year of Literature are now translated in many regions of Russia.

Competition of urban practices is initiated by the International Assembly of Capitals and Cities and carried out in cooperation with the CIS Executive Committee, the Integration Committee of the Eurasian Economic Community, and Committee of the State Council of the federal structure and Local Government, Ministry of Regional Development, All-Russian Council of Local Self-Government.

Review-competition is held as a public PR-action of the cities and can promote their interests, create a positive image. The competition gives the opportunity to the participating cities to demonstrate the accumulated resource and potential of providing a stable socio-economic development of cities, regions and countries.