Mikhail Mishustin chairs a strategic session on preserving Russia’s cultural landmarks

Mikhail Mishustin: "A solicitous attitude towards historical and architectural landmarks, and spiritual and moral values implies care for the past and our common obligation before future generations."

Mikhail Mishustin's opening remarks:

Good afternoon, colleagues,

Today, we will discuss in detail the issue of preserving cultural heritage landmarks of Russia's nations, as well as issues linked with the development of the restoration sector. A solicitous attitude towards historical and architectural landmarks, and spiritual and moral values implies care for the past and our common obligation before future generations.

Virtually every Russian region has well-preserved examples of monumental art, old buildings, churches, temples, estates and sites of ancient settlements. All of them represent our multiethnic culture and are seen as valuable by professionals, including historians, archaeologists, creative professionals, etc. And, of course, they attract many people who are interested in our country and its history.

We now have about 160,000 such landmarks. Most of them are in a good or satisfactory state; however, substantial investment is required to restore some of these landmarks.

It is important to do everything possible to prevent the loss of the unique Russian cultural and historical heritage.

In his Address to the Federal Assembly, the President devoted special attention to this issue and instructed the concerned officials to analyse the regulatory framework regarding the protection of these facilities and their use and to eliminate excessive and conflicting requirements. This is why we should, first of all, conduct an inventory of those included in the state register and to ensure their use by order of priority.

This will make it possible to find out how many financial resources, specialists and how much time it will take to duly restore the landmarks.

The President has emphasised that it is necessary to find additional resources for developing our culture, for supporting creative professionals and the relevant organisations.

The Government is creating favourable conditions for involving as many investors as possible in preserving the country's cultural and historical heritage.

For this purpose, we are improving state assistance measures for entrepreneurs who are ready to independently restore these landmarks.

This includes a new mechanism, specifically, a pilot project, launched in eight Russian territories, including the Trans-Baikal Territory, the Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, Samara, Smolensk, Tver, Yaroslavl and Novgorod regions.

Investors take out soft loans in order to reduce their restoration expenses. When the renovation is completed, they can become legal owners of the facility but only if they use and maintain it accordingly.

We hope that this will become an effective and popular measure, and that it will help preserve churches, estates and other cultural and historical values.

Colleagues, the issues we are to discuss today in detail are quite complicated. First of all, they require us to finetune our regulatory documents. Moreover, we need to make well-thought-out decisions heeding the interests of all parties, including the state, businesses, our regions, and of course, our citizens.

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