Ilsur Metshin: “The service of grave care is an important moral project”

(City Kazan KZN.RU, August 8). The new service, with which users can order the service for maintenance and improvement of burial places of their relatives and friends, will be launched in Kazan. For now the portal memorial.pro is working in test mode. 

Rifat Khannanov, the head of the Information Technology and Communications Office, said that the new service is based on open data portal. “This service allows you to order a variety of services for the care of the burial site, from laying a bouquet on a particular day to complex annual maintenance, including garbage collection, fences painting, etc.”, he said. 

He said that the establishment of a unified registry of all graves was initiated last year. It will be possible to find the burial site with a single electronic database cemetery.kzn.ru without having full information about the deceased. There are data on 160 thousand graves, committed on 13 cemeteries since 1980, on the portal. Data on new graves are entered into the database on a daily basis. 

“Now we have launched a service of grave care in the test mode, it requires at least a month”, said Rifat Khannanov to reporters. “We plan to develop the service. The question of payment acceptance and photo reports is important. As soon as we pass the test mode, we will publish a link, where will be possible to download the mobile app”. 

The head of Information Technologies and Communication Office drew attention to the fact that any IT-company can implement a mobile application on the basis of Kazan Open data or implement a pilot project in the most appropriate division of the Executive Committee.

R. Khannanov noted that it is the first startup for the developer company. 

He is also noted that the Ministry of Construction of Russia plans to create a unified grave map in Russia, and a pilot region for the introduction of grave map is selecting. R. Khannanov asked Ilsur Metshin, the Mayor of Kazan, to support their initiative of addressing the Government of Tatrstan with the proposal to implement the system throughout the country. According to him, there is a chance to attract federal grants for this purpose. 

The Mayor supported the idea. “I think that it is necessary to implement this service, especially if it coincides with the sphere of interest of the Russia Ministry of Construction”, said Ilsur Metshin. 

“We passed a long way, so let's present the information to the relevant tender committee and together with the Ministry of Construction, Architecture and Housing of Tatarstan report on the work we have done”, said the Mayor. “It is very large, because we are doing this over a year for now”. 

“Many people move to a new residence for military service, for work, go abroad and stay there. This is normal, for the world is open. And they have a natural desire to take care of the graves of relatives, and often there is no possibility to come every spring, every autumn, and to the parent day”, said the Mayor of Kazan. “Now, from anywhere in the world people can find out, where their relatives were buried, and also order service for the care of the grave, to clean and paint the fence. This project is an important spiritual and mental, and it is needed to us to respect ourselves and our history. It is almost complete, but there is no limit to perfection, and we must finish it”, concluded the Mayor.