Home coziness in a residential area: an updated boulevard in Fucik Street opened in Kazan

(KZN.RU, September 21, Ksenia Shvetsova). Today, an updated boulevard in Fucik Street opened in the Sovetsky district. As the basis for the project for the improvement of the boulevard, they used the concept “Welcome home!”. It conveys the atmosphere of a cozy living room, for example, street lights are made in the form of floor lamps, and benches are big like home couches. Alexey Pesoshin, the prime minister of the RT, and Ilsur Metshin, the Mayor of Kazan, visited the landscaped territory.

The boulevard, which was formed during the construction of residential buildings in the 1990s, was in a poor state, it was used only as a transit. The project of an accomplishment of a boulevard has been developed by architects taking into account the wishes of inhabitants of the micro-district Azino, which took part in public discussions of the project. The developer of the draft project was the creative group at the Kazan City Hall. Contractor organization was the OOO “Greenstan”. The total length of the boulevard is 700 meters. On its territory, there was a children's playground, amphitheaters, pergola, small architectural forms, benches, and urns. During the repair, the road surface was completely renewed, lanterns, swings, and trees were planted. Also, there are comfortable conditions for rest and movement of citizens with disabilities on the renovated boulevard.

The project was designed in close cooperation with students and school principals, institutions of additional education and kindergartens as 2 big schools and 2 kindergartens adjoin the boulevard. Darya Tolovenkova, the deputy chief architect of the city and the head of the creative group at the Kazan City Hall, said that residents asked to bring in more flowers. “The schoolchildren wrote us a whole essay on how important it is to include bright nuances, mostly yellow. That's why we started and finished the boulevard with this color”, said Daria Tolovenkova. And she added that the comfortable and wide pedestrian paths were also taken into account in the improvement.

The residents chose the topic of the new space themselves. They expressed their opinion at public hearings when discussing the title. The boulevard should be cozy and warm as a home. In addition to benches in the form of comfortable sofas, the boulevard was decorated with unusual lamps made in the type of floor lamps, the heads of which are made of perforations and give a pleasant, diffusing light in the evening.

Another ideological image of the new park was the theme of a puzzle, used in the design of the elements of improvement and embedded in the structure of public space. The theme of the mosaic is put in the functional zoning of the boulevard: entrance areas are followed by quiet zones, quiet zones by children's and youth's.

The Prime Minister and the Mayor walked along the boulevard and talked with the citizens who thanked them for their work. In honor of the opening of the new public space, a holiday was organized. Guests were treated with homemade cakes, jams, and other treats.

Young pupils of the Kazan music school took part in the festival. They played guitars on pedestrians, and pupils of the teenage club “Avangard” arranged a whole exhibition on the boulevard from models of aircraft designed in the aviation circle. Alexey Pesoshin and Ilsur Metshin signed one of the aircraft models for the memory of the opening of the boulevard.

All the works were carried out in one stage. Before the start of the improvement, all the underground networks were completely replaced. It was important to complete these works before the renovation of the boulevard. In addition, courtyards adjacent to the boulevard houses have been landscaped. They were painted in bright colors, in harmony with the design of the space. The walls of the houses have images of balconies with cats, birds and flowers on them. It complements the home atmosphere of the boulevard. “We have achieved multi-tiered, complex landscaping. The appearance of the boulevard has changed, cobblestones, lanterns and so on have been refreshed. All the work has been done underground, and the facades of houses have been repaired”, noted D. Tolovenkova.

“Now the landscaping has moved to the far districts of Kazan. We are moving closer to the residents who can see squares and parks from their windows already now”, said D. Tolovenkova.

Denis Kalinkin, the head of the Executive Committee, Igor Kulyazhev, the deputy head of the Committee for External Improvement, Rustem Gafarov, the head of the Sovetsky district, Marat Zakirov, the Director of the Directorate of Parks and Squares, and others took part in the inspection of the renewed boulevard.