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Medvedev attends groundbreaking ceremony for innovation city near Kazan

The city is being built on an area of 1,200 hectares 40 kilometres from Kazan on the right bank of the Volga
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

KAZAN, June 9 (Itar-Tass) —— Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev attended the groundbreaking ceremony for an innovation city near Kazan on Saturday, June 9.

The city is being built on an area of 1,200 hectares 40 kilometres from Kazan on the right bank of the Volga. There will be an IT village for 20,000 information technology specialists.

Medvedev and Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov laid a time capsule in the foundation of the future Innopolis.

“A big project has started today. Some 155,000 people will live and work here in several years. These will be people who want to change their life and their country. And it will be a very strong and interesting innovation centre that will generate new ideas. The city will allow a large number of people to tap their creative potential,” Medvedev said.

“You will live and build here. You have to work,” he said, addressing Kazan students who came to meet him.

The innovation centre will work by the “live or study or work or rest” principle. At the first stage in 2012-2014, a technology park of 200,000 square metres will be built. It will have a shape similar to a football stadium with a park and restaurant at the centre. Next to it will be the building of an IT university for 5,000 students. Kazan Federal University is already training teachers for it.

A complex of dormitories will be built for 4,500 students and residential complex for teachers and personnel. It will consist of 1-, 2-, 3-, 6- and 9-storey buildings capable of accommodating 25,000 people.

The city will also have a school, a kindergarten, a healthcare centre, a shop, a House of Culture, and other facilities.

At the initial stage, 25,000 people will live in the city. Eventually, its population will grow to 155,000.