Kazan was awarded a special nomination of the World City Prize by Lee Kuan Yew

(KZN.RU, March 26, Alsu Safina). Kazan was awarded a special nomination for the prestigious and large-scale award of Lee Kuan Y. This fact was announced today on Business Monday by the first deputy head of the Kazan municipality Evgeniya Lodvigova. According to her, among other cities chosen for special mention are Hamburg (Germany), Surabaya (Indonesia) and Tokyo (Japan).

E. Lodvigova told, that the winner is announced at the award ceremony during the World Summit of Cities in Singapore. This year, the winner was South Korean Seoul.

"Being on a par with cities like Hamburg and Tokyo is not just honorable, it automatically raises the level of demands, first of all, to ourselves,"- commented on the joyful news Mayor of Kazan Ilsur Metshin.

"To participate in such competitions you need to have a good condition. We were able to demonstrate this,"- the Mayor of Kazan believes. - We were moved by the certainty that Kazan can claim the attention of international experts. The distance we traveled together, including our predecessors, certainly changed the city and the urban environment. Even the most desperate critics, to whose opinions we always respectfully listen, will not argue with this."

It is worth to mention, that other Russian cities also applied for the award, but only Kazan was awarded as a result. According to the mayor, this imposes new tasks to achieve the goals. I.Metshin noted that it is important to participate in such competitions, because it allows you to look at yourself among these cities and learn best practices.

On 1-4 October, the Contest Committee of the Prize visited Kazan on an inspection visit for the final selection of the winner. Representatives of the commission visited the Kazan Kremlin, the “Kazan Arena” stadium, the ICDC, the “Sovremennik” apartment complex, the Water Sports Palace, and the Food and Nutrition Department of Kazan. The mayor of Kazan noted that the arrival of the competition committee was kept secret from everyone. "It was incognito, in the regime of complete non-acquaintance for many of you"- he told the participants of the meeting. According to the mayor, the expert commission consisted of specialists from all over the world - Singapore, the United States, Europe and Asia, people who had successful experience in urban economy and planning. "These are specialists of the highest level, each in its own field of activity," Ilsur Metshin shared his impressions.

The Lee Kuan Yew Prize is an international prize that is awarded every two years to cities and their leaders for successes in managing and providing innovations to improve urban economy. The prize is named after the first prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, who played an important role in the development of the city-state.

Ilsur Metshin told that in the application it was necessary to show the movement of the city forward. "One of the key positive moments in the application was the multinational composition of our city and republic; here people have been creatively living for centuries, respecting each other's traditions. On the scale of the restless world, the way our townspeople and Tatarstanians live was a pleasant discovery for them,"- the head of the city emphasized.

According to him, experts from all over the world not only appreciated the changes that are taking place in the city, but also noted that Kazan has all the prerequisites for further development, in order to become a strong special city. "The experts did not just praised, they pointed out where we need to enhance work and what to do in the nearest future, especially to become a strong city with sustainable development,"- I. Metshin said. "Of course, this gives us a second wind to achieve the tasks that our life and townspeople are setting for us."