I. Metshin: “The restoration of the Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda is one of the best examples of public-private partnership”

(KZN.RU, October 1, Alena Miroshnichenko). The restoration of the Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda is one of the best examples of public-private partnership. Ilsur Metshin, the Mayor of Kazan, expressed such an opinion at the Business Monday today. The head of the city also marked that in addition to preserving architectural values and reviving traditions, the historical part of the capital needs to be filled with all sorts of events.

The issue of restoration and reconstruction of buildings in Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda was discussed today at the staff meeting. Marat Usmanov, the prefect of the territory “Stary Gorod”, reported today that almost all of the 97 cultural heritage sites located on the territory of Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda have been restored. There are museums, restaurants, hostels, new events.

This year, five historic buildings and four hotels opened after reconstruction in the Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda. By the beginning of the World Cup, work was completed to restore the lost house of Bikmukhametov. The construction work was carried out in record time, and the approximate amount of investments was just over 250 million rubles. The House of Safa Bakhteev with creative workshops is functioning on the territory, as well as the House of Fuks. There is now a lounge cafe and a small aparthotel for 33 rooms in the building of the Fire Station of the 2nd Police Station. On the Kazan City Day, the opening ceremony of the G. Tukay Literary Museum took place after its reconstruction. At the end of this year – the beginning of the next one, a complex of buildings of the Petzold brewery will be delivered. The work is underway to transfer the House of Bagautdinova (Marjani) - Apanaeva to the investor and to bring the House of Mullin back to its original appearance, as it was at the end of the XIX century. Over the past 3 years, roads have also been renovated for more than 550 million rubles in total.

Marat Usmanov highlighted the reconstruction of the building of the factory and trade association “The Krestovnikov brothers” as one of the most striking examples of a successful public-private partnership. In April 2018, an auction was held on the sale of the cultural heritage site; its initial price was 1 ruble. The building was purchased for 2 million rubles; now the investor has to restore it within five years.

Three houses of the Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda entered this year's list of participants in the festival “Tom Sawyer Fest”. The complexity and uniqueness of the work consist in the need to recreate the architecture and appearance of the buildings characteristic of the Tatar people's tradition. The preliminary cost of works is approximately 1 million rubles.

New youth joints have also appeared in the territory of the Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda. Marat Usmanov reminded that in May this year, the first Kazan blacksmith festival was held in the Sloboda, in July, there was a tea festival, and in August - the first international festival of national traditions “Khazine”. More than 15 thousand people attended events. Next year they will be held in the Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda again.

A special event for the residents and guests of the Sloboda was the opening of the embankment of the Kaban Lake from the side of Salimzhanov Street.

The tourist infrastructure also develops on the territory of the Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda. Over 8 months of this year, more than 1 million tourists have visited it. This is 15% more than for the same period last year, noted M. Usmanov. This spring, the construction of a new hotel for 18 rooms on G. Tukay Street started, which will open at the end of 2018. This will be the fifth hotel, which opened in 2018 on the territory of the Sloboda. The total number of hotels and hostels there is 52. “I want to say with certainty that the Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda is living and actively developing today as a unique historical and cultural complex of our capital”, concluded the prefect.

“Today, a whole district of Kazan receives more than a million tourists, and the year has not yet ended. Accordingly, there are jobs and business. We need to move on, making new objects, events. We would like this to be the place of the restored houses of our great theologians, scientists, thinkers, cultural figures. And also, we would like it to have a lot of events of urban, republican, all-Russian scale. That we kept our traditions and multiplied what came to us through generations. But we are not even in the middle of the way. There is a big road ahead, which we will do together”, marked the Mayor of Kazan.