UFA, February 18. /ITAR-TASS/. The capital of Bashkortostan, Ufa, has joined the list of cities with million-plus population, the mayor of the city located more than 1,000 kilometers east from Moscow told reporters on Tuesday.
According to Irek Yalalov, more than 1.100 million people live in Ufa at the moment. Natural population growth made up 4,788 people last year with more than 17,200 children born, a 5% year-on-year growth, he said.
Republic’s head Rustem Khamitov said the implementation of state programs, in particular those on pre-school education, had had its positive effect. Since 2010, the republic has been implementing a program to build new kindergartens, with budget injections of about five billion roubles.
The kindergarten waiting list in the republic has become three times shorter in the past three years, down to 13,500 from 50,000.
“The problem of kindergarten waiting lists for children aged between three and seven must be fully solved by 2016,” Khamitov said.
Among the other biggest cities in Russia are capital Moscow, second-biggest city of St. Petersburg, Siberian Novosibirsk and Omsk, Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk in the Urals, Volga river cities of Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Volgograd and Samara, as well as Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia.