Deputy Governor of Nizhny Novgorod region Oleg Berkovich P program RTVI “Hour of Speak” explained the benefits of Nizhny Novgorod’s status as the “Youth Capital of Russia”. He also explained how the tourist flow in the region has increased since the city’s 800th anniversary in 2021 and how it is expected to increase in the future.
“The Rosmolodezh “Youth Capital” project is taking place this year for the first time. And we fought very actively to win it for the first time. This gives small bonuses in the form of improving a public space, but the main thing that gives is a number of events from Rosmolodezh, which are transferred to Nizhny Novgorod for a year, ”he said.
Among these events is the major grants forum “Peak of Opportunities”, which will be held in April, as well as the celebration of Youth Day, scheduled for June 24 and 25. Berkovich stressed that “people from all over the country will come to Nizhny Novgorod” to see him. “And we will have an organizing committee for the World Festival of Youth and Students, which will be held in Moscow and Sochi in 2024 – it will be a huge project.
We participate in its preparation and organization, and in general there is a big plan, many different events which aim sometimes for grant competitions, sometimes for festival activities, sometimes for career competitions.
So it’s a very useful thing,” he added.
According to the deputy head of the region, Nizhny Novgorod is now “a very student city”, where more than 90,000 students study. Due to the proximity to the capital, young people from other parts of the country, including Moscow, began to come to the city, and the student and youth communities as a whole “came to life and became brighter , more visible. All this, says Berkovich, began after the celebration of the city’s 800th anniversary in 2021, after which many different festivals and other spaces appeared in Nizhny Novgorod that attract young people. In this sense, the status of “Youth Capital”, he believes, should offer even more opportunities for their development in the region.
“In itself, the 800th anniversary would have achieved nothing if it hadn’t fallen on the right soil. That is to say that for these young people, who are numerous, who are well educated, who are active and determined to live and work there, we have tried to create conditions so that they have less motivation leaving for Moscow, Saint-Petersburg or abroad. . As much as they could, culture was revived, public spaces with the sole purpose of making life in the city very pleasant. In general, it is the main task to have more opportunities for young people, ”explained the deputy head of the region.
This, he pointed out, applies not only to college and university graduates, but also to those under 35 in general, for whom jobs are being created in the region, as well as to the conditions for starting their own company. For this, for example, a program of concessional loans is in preparation.
Nizhny Novgorod received the status of “Youth Capital of Russia” at the end of December 2022. In the final of the competition, which Rosmolodezh organized for the first time last year, Vladivostok, Novy Urengoy, Kaliningrad, Murmansk, Tula and Krasnoyarsk also competed for this title. How explain on the official portal of the competition, to participate, cities had to describe in their applications the existing conditions for young people in the city, explain its tourist attraction for the young generation, and also provide an action plan for the year and a infrastructure construction or renovation project for young people.
“Add tourist feed”
Along with the influx of young people, according to the deputy head of the Nizhny Novgorod region, the region as a whole is experiencing an increase in tourism. If at the end of 2021 the tourist flow amounted to 2.5 million people, then in 2022 the number of tourists increased by more than one and a half times – up to 3.9 million people.
“These are overnight tourists, not counting tourists, that is, those who arrived by bus and immediately left – there are several million more,” says Berkovich.
In terms of tourist “traffic”, he noted, Nizhny Novgorod is already catching up with Kazan, but it lags behind in terms of the number of rooms: “they have 22,000 rooms, and in Nizhny the total number of rooms is of 16,500,” the official added. At the same time, an increase in the flow of tourists to the region is expected in the future, in particular due to the Moscow-Kazan toll highway, which “will pass through the southern part of the region, including Arzamas.”
“It is a route that should greatly energize and add tourist flow to the southern part of the region. We are now carrying out a very active construction activity in Arzamas, we are improving the city, restoring the center. In general, we are preparing it so that in 2024 it can sort of start receiving guests,” he said.
