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Sobyanin describes the idea of capital’s relocation as joke

Shoigu, who will take the office of the governor of the Moscow region in May, had said it would be good if the capital was relocated to the Siberia

Photo ITAR-TASS

Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, April 23 (Itar-Tass) — Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has described as a joke Sergei Shoigu’s proposal to move the capital of Russia from Moscow to Siberia.

“I think the proposal was nothing but a joke,” the mayor said in an interview with the Moscow media on Monday.

Shoigu, who will take the office of the governor of the Moscow region in May, had said it would be good if the capital was relocated to the Siberia. Shoigu also stressed he had good relations with the Moscow mayor.

Sobyanin said the capital’s relocation which would have certainly been good for the Siberia would have been a total disaster for Moscow and the Moscow region. That would mean the outflow of investments from the Moscow region and job cuts. Besides, the move would have reduced the fill rate of the budgets in the two regions.

Sobyanin said that Moscow and the Moscow region had merged with each other into a single whole and that it’s impossible to develop them in separation from each other.

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