Which city is the center of the capital being moved to? From Crimea to Yenisei. Where was it proposed to move the capital of Russia in different years? “One can understand Shoigu’s concerns, they want to strengthen the Russian world”

It is difficult to count how many times deputies, oligarchs, scientists, cultural figures or ordinary citizens have proposed taking away Moscow’s capital status. IN recent years dominance among cities - along with overcrowding, traffic jams and other problems - many newsmakers dreamed of dragging it to the east. The latest statement was made on his Facebook page by Dmitry Orlov, a member of the Supreme Council of the United Russia party, director of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications - he proposed moving the capital to Yekaterinburg, which he considers “the best option.”

And now Orlov’s statement is being seriously discussed in the media, politicians and experts are arguing about it. With a feeling of undisguised envy, the editors of NGS.NOVOSTI decided to remind you that in addition to Yekaterinburg, there are other cities that are more suitable for moving the capital. For example, Novosibirsk. Judge for yourself.

1. The capital’s ambitions have haunted us since the beginning of the 20th century.

About the status of the capital Russian Empire Novonikolaevsk did not have time to think about it, but it was able to declare itself the capital of the region already in 1907. The corresponding document, the act of transferring the lands of the Altai District to Novonikolaevsk at that time, was signed by imperial officials on December 9 in the building on Obskaya Street, 4 - from that moment Novonikolaevsk became an independent city, and later the capital of the region.

2. Novosibirsk has already tried on the capital’s gloss

Novosibirsk first felt like a capital in 1942, when during the war not only factories from the European part of Russia, but also theater groups, the exhibition and storage rooms of the Tretyakov Gallery were moved to the city at once.

3. The Vice President of the Russian Federation spoke for the Novosibirsk capital

The ideologist of the transfer of part of the capital's powers to Novosibirsk in 1991 was Vice President of the Russian Federation Alexander Rutskoy. In 2012, he told an NGS.NOVOSTI correspondent that back in 1991 he proposed moving the government to Novosibirsk, leaving the presidential administration in Moscow: “The government of the Russian Federation should sit in Novosibirsk. If we look at the development prospects of our country, this should have been done 20 years ago. Investments would go not to China, but to Russia.” According to Rutsky, all the Novosibirsk residents he met during perestroika business trips rejoiced and “applauded while standing” when they heard the idea of ​​​​moving the capital to Novosibirsk. But the plans were prevented by Gennady Burbulis and Yegor Gaidar, who were opponents of this idea in Moscow.

4. The oligarchs dreamed of moving the capital to Siberia

The head of RUSAL, oligarch Oleg Deripaska, has repeatedly spoken out in favor of moving the capital from Moscow, for example, to Novosibirsk. He spoke about this in 2008 and 2009. “To fight corruption, we need to move the capital to Yekaterinburg or Novosibirsk. Peter I was forced to flee Moscow, because bureaucratic expenses were a burden for development even in his era,” he said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

5. Novosibirsk was supported by neighbors from the Far East

In 2010 news agency of the Far East, Vostok-Media conducted a survey on the topic “Where should the capital of the state be located?”, in which 2,079 residents of the region took part. Novosibirsk was supported by 34% of them, Moscow was in second place (21%), and St. Petersburg was in third (10%). Editor-in-Chief RIA Vostok-Media Nikolai Kutenkikh then supported the readers’ choice: “Such a choice only confirms that sensible people live in the Far East.” However, at the same time he admitted that residents of the Far East do not have any special love for Novosibirsk residents, and it’s all simply due to geographical criteria and the location of the city.

6. Intellectuals wanted to see a scientific center as the capital

Novosibirsk won the rating of alternative capitals in 2012, receiving every fourth vote taken into account in the survey conducted on the RBC.Rating portal. The rating consisted of 15 alternative capitals, Novosibirsk received 24.03% of the votes, while it significantly broke away from its competitors: Ekaterinburg was in second place (17.5% of the votes), Vladivostok was in third (about 10%). At the same time, St. Petersburg was even lower with 9.09% of the votes. Scientific director of the Social Information Agency of St. Petersburg, Roman Mogilevsky, then suggested that the matter was not in Novosibirsk. “Here there is the factor of a special critically thinking audience of the RBC portal. This educated people, who became hostages of their own image of Novosibirsk. Your city, in the generally accepted view, is a large scientific and educational center with a highly developed innovative industry, a quiet political haven, a spacious, developed, tolerant city. Taking into account that there are businessmen in RBC’s audience, when answering the question, they took into account that the risk of losing business in Novosibirsk is lower than in Moscow or St. Petersburg,” said the sociologist.

7. The idea was also supported by influential Siberians

Talk about moving the capital from Moscow to Siberia began again after Sergei Shoigu’s statement that the capital of Russia should be located in Siberia. His remark was happily supported by Vladimir Gorodetsky, who then served as mayor of Novosibirsk. “I think when great politicians consider where the capital should be, Novosibirsk has the right to lay claim to this mission,” he said. Gorodetsky became the author of a local meme about the “capital gloss”, which was supposed to appear in Novosibirsk after the next snow removal.

8. LDPR deputies tried to make Novosibirsk a city of federal significance

The corresponding draft federal constitutional law was submitted to the State Duma by LDPR deputy Dmitry Savelyev. He proposed to form a Russian Federation a new subject - the federal city of Novosibirsk, and to locate two ministries in it - the Ministry of Regional Development and the Ministry of Eastern Development. “Now everything is concentrated in one capital - Moscow. Beyond the Moscow Ring Road, by and large, there is no life. That's at least what the people of the province joke bitterly about. As a result, Russia was placed in a province, in the so-called castle,” Dmitry Savelyev explained his initiative.

9. In 2015, a convicted State Duma deputy, straight from prison, spoke out in favor of the Siberian capital

State Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Konstantin Shirshov, sentenced to 5 years for trying to sell a mandate, wrote the corresponding bill in the colony “Matrosskaya Silence,” Gazeta.ru reported. He was not deprived of his deputy status, so he could make any proposals. He called the bill “a testament from Matrosski”; the deputy proposed moving the capital to Novosibirsk to “create a more stable structure of the territorial-political structure with a center in Western Siberia.” It was necessary to move the capital because of high housing prices, problems with infrastructure, corruption, social mobility and justice, he wrote. In total, there were 17 pages of arguments in favor of Novosibirsk. Among them was the often-mentioned statement that “today Novosibirsk is the fastest growing city in the world, which is therefore included in the Guinness Book of Records.”

10. In the end, Novosibirsk was supported by Buryatia

Last winter, Arnold Tulokhonov, a member of the Federation Council from Buryatia, spoke in favor of moving the capital, saying that Moscow was becoming obsolete, as reported by the Baikal Daily portal. When asked by a journalist about where to move the capital of Russia, the senator replied that there was no difference. “Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk. Doesn't matter. It could be any city. This cannot be done in Moscow. Moscow is becoming obsolete,” Tulokhonov was quoted as saying by Baikal Daily. He also stated that the capital should be located in a more convenient location. “We need to “move” the capital out of Moscow: it should be in the middle, so that it is convenient not for officials, but for the population. Today, 75% of all transportation is carried out through Moscow. And in order to get from Yakutsk to Chita, you have to go through Moscow,” InformPolis Online quoted Tulokhonov as saying.

History does not tolerate subjunctive mood? He still endures so much. Especially here in Russia. We list the cities that could be the capital of our Motherland (and even those that have enjoyed informal capital status). If not for the circumstances...

Veliky Novgorod

Of course, this is the first thing that comes to mind. The richest Russian city-state until the 16th century, the place of Rurik’s vocation. It was here that “the Russians, the Chuds, the Slovenes, the Krivichis and all said: “Our land is great and abundant, but there is no order in it. Come reign and rule over us." Actually, this would be more than enough to claim all-Russian capital status. However, Veliky Novgorod had other plans: the city basked in its own self-sufficiency and independence and shunned any geopolitical games aimed at dominating the territory of the former Kievan Rus. As a result, John III came in 1478 and closed down the “feudal republic.” From that moment on, the city began to dive down: from a subject of world politics, Veliky Novgorod turned into a regional center and a museum city, where there is something to show foreigners.

In terms of age, this city could easily compete with Novgorod the Great. Rurik also ruled here, the city residents actively participated in Oleg’s campaigns against Constantinople, and it was here that the seed of the future of Muscovite Rus' was sown. For a long time, Rostov was the main city in North-Eastern Rus' and the largest spiritual center. However, he could not withstand the pressure of Moscow and the Danilovich dynasty. At first, Rostov at the beginning of the 14th century was divided into two parts: Borisoglebskaya and Sretenskaya (which ended up under Moscow protectorate). The entire disloyal elite was expelled from the Moscow part. The author of “The Life of Sergius of Radonezh,” who, by the way, came from a Rostov boyar family, laments: “alas for Rostov and his princes, they took power, reign, property and glory from them.” And already John III in 1474 finally bought out the second, Borisoglebskaya, half of the city. And Rostov unhinderedly began its descent to the state of a quiet provincial town.

Vladimir

Founded at the end of the 10th century on the site of a small village of the Merya tribe, Vladimir received the status of the capital city of North-Eastern Rus' within a century and a half. Thanks to Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, who in 1157 moved the capital of “the entire Suzdal land” here. But the Mongol-Tatar invasion undermined the promising development of Vladimir. Despite the conditional status of the capital, the city quickly lost its primacy. The last prince who reigned directly in Vladimir was Alexander Nevsky.

At the dawn of Russian statehood, Suzdal was a very influential city. Despite the adoption of Orthodoxy, it remained one of the centers of paganism until the 12th century. It was here that the famous revolt of the Magi broke out in 1024. A little over 100 years have passed; the Magi cooled down a little and scattered into the nearest thickets, and Yuri Dolgoruky made Suzdal the center of the North-Eastern land. But not for long. And already in 1392 the Great Principality of Moscow, having absorbed this city, finally buried the “metropolitan” ambitions of Suzdal. But in the 16th century the city became one of the spiritual centers of the country. But also not for long. At first, Suzdal resigned itself to the status of a provincial town, but in our era it took on the burden of “historical Disneyland.”

Many lovers of antiquity dream of the capital status of this city (today, in fact, villages). However, Ladoga gave up its claim to the capital city even before the Baptism of Rus'. This city was founded by the Varangians. It was from here that the Norman colonization of the future territory of Russia began. According to one version, it was here (and not in Novgorod) that Rurik sat down to rule. In those days, Ladoga was a port city, where merchant caravans gathered, trade in furs, jewelry, weapons and slaves was brisk. Actually, that’s all the claims to capital status. Already in the 10th century, Ladoga became completely dependent on Veliky Novgorod, and in 1703, the “ancient capital of Northern Rus'” lost its status as a city.

Alexandrovskaya Sloboda

This small town breathed life into the capital under Ivan the Terrible, who made it the center of his oprichnina. For more than a decade and a half, life was in full swing here: the most important political decisions were made in Sloboda, embassies of the most influential states of that time were opened, negotiations were held at the very top level. The best icon painters and architects worked in Alexandrovskaya Sloboda; The first conservatory in Russia was founded, where, by order of the Tsar, the best musicians and singers were brought from all over the country. The country's first provincial printing house was opened here, and in 1576 the Slobodskaya Psalter, printed by Andronik Nevezha, was published. It is in Sloboda that traces of the legendary Grozny library are lost.

But one day it all ended at once. In 1581, the tsar left for Moscow and never returned. And the city fell asleep for several centuries.

City of Kitezh

According to legend, the city was founded by Prince Vladimir Yuri Vsevolodovich on the shore of Lake Svetloyar. The city stood for 75 years before the invasion of Batu Khan. When Batu’s troops approached him, then, at the prayer of the residents, Kitezh disappeared. According to one version, he disappeared under the water of the lake, according to another, he simply became invisible. In Russian tradition, it was believed that the city would become visible again only with the second coming of Christ. True, there are legends that true righteous people can still see the city (and even live there!). For them it is already the capital...

Head of the Supervisory Board of the Institute of Demography, Migration and regional development Yuri Krupnov proposed to the Russian President to move the capital beyond the Urals. This is not the first such proposal to “unmoscow” the country’s capital in recent years. According to the expert, the capital region “absorbed almost a fifth of the entire Russian population.” National development also focuses on 15-25 megacities, in which “more than half” of all citizens live. On the occasion of once again considering the issue of moving the capital of Russia, we recall how this issue was approached in different years.

Saint Petersburg

The most frequent candidate to regain the title of the capital of the country. The city on the Neva was originally built as the capital of the Russian Empire and everything about it is majestic: from buildings to fountains and squares. There was no formal decree according to which St. Petersburg became the capital. The transfer of the capital began in 1710, when senior officials began to move to St. Petersburg, followed by senators. In 1712, the royal court settled in St. Petersburg. Despite the reverse transfer of the capital in 1728, after its transfer in 1730 to St. Petersburg, it remained the capital until 1918. Note that talk about St. Petersburg again becoming the official capital began to arise after the election of the President Vladimir Putin.

The first person to start talking about transferring some of the capital’s functions to St. Petersburg was the State Duma speaker Gennady Seleznev. In his opinion, Moscow does not have enough premises for the fruitful activities of people's representatives, and Mayor Yuri Luzhkov does not want to allocate land for the construction of a modern parliamentary complex. In St. Petersburg, legislators could comfortably accommodate themselves in their “native land” - the Tauride Palace, where the first Russian Dumas met. In 2000, the then ambassador to Belarus also addressed this issue Pavel Borodin.

In January 2002, another attempt was made to raise the topic - Chairman of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov said that in the near future he would submit to the State Duma a bill on transferring part of the functions of the capital to the city. The project was prepared by Mironov himself and St. Petersburg governor Vladimir Yakovlev. In February 2003 - the third visit. Valentina Matvienko, then still Deputy Prime Minister, announced that she was in favor of transferring some of the capital’s functions to St. Petersburg. However, it never came to concrete proposals.

Novosibirsk

The capital of Siberia is another option under discussion for the country's capital. They advocated its transfer to Siberia Sergei Shoigu when he was governor of the Moscow region and businessman Oleg Deripaska, whose main production assets are located beyond the Urals.

“In general, in a good way, many people talk about this. I’m probably one of them. I believe that the capital should be moved further away, to Siberia. It seems to me so,” Sergei Shoigu said then.

In addition, in different years, Vladimir Zhirinovsky proposed making Novosibirsk the capital of the country, Eduard Limonov and other public figures.

Then the experts agreed that strengths This idea is that neighboring regions will receive an impetus for development, and there will be some renewal of power structures in the process of relocation. There were also many potential downsides. First of all, these are the costs of moving, which will cost hundreds of billions of rubles. In addition, it will be difficult for the authorities to work during the relocation process. Muscovites are also concerned about the prospects of their city, which is now tailored to the functions of the capital and cannot exist without them.

By the way, Novosibirsk is the third largest city in the country. It is curious that at the peak of conversations and rumors on this topic the then governor of the Novosibirsk region, Vasily Yurchenko, called it inappropriate to move the capital of Russia beyond the Urals and, in particular, to Novosibirsk - in his opinion, this idea is an unrealizable project.

Magadan

Magadan could be the ideal “first city” of Russia, the LDPR leader believes Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Several years ago he said that moving the capital from Moscow to Far East will strengthen Russia's influence on Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia and Australia. At the same time, Zhirinovsky admitted that he is not at all afraid of the potential distance of the new capital from Europe. According to him, Europe is aging and by the middle of the 21st century it will become a “museum”, so there is no need to worry about this. At the same time, the majority of those who advocate moving the capital doubt that the idea will be supported by Moscow officials. In addition, such a large-scale project will require enormous costs.

Krasnoyarsk

After the performance Vladimir Putin At the tenth Seliger forum in 2014, a topic appeared about the possible move of the entire political elite of the country to Krasnoyarsk. The president's statement caused heated discussion among deputies. Later, this issue was approached several more times, but even in this case everything remained at the level of proposals, even if they were said by the president of the country. However, Krasnoyarsk has everything to become one of the centers of the country in the coming years. In terms of its economy, this city is one of the leaders in Siberia, and in 2019 the Winter Universiade will be held there, which will help attract additional investment to the city.

Sevastopol

Last year, on the anniversary of the referendum on the reunification of Crimea with Russia, the chairman of the board of directors of the Institute for Analysis of Political Infrastructure, Evgeniy Tunik, proposed moving the capital to Sevastopol. He sent a corresponding appeal to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. However, such a decision is unlikely to be reasonable, given the attitude towards the status of the peninsula in the West.

Yekaterinburg

Another option that appears as possible candidates. Just the other day, a member of the Supreme Council " United Russia" Dmitry Orlov called Yekaterinburg the best option for moving the capital from Moscow. According to Orlov, Moscow is located far from the geographical center of Russia, and its development leads to hypertrophy of the Moscow agglomeration. By the way, the capital of the Urals is the fourth largest city in the country and one of the fastest growing and modern.

Only the absence of really significant political news and events in the season can explain the attention that the news about the proposal to move the capital from Moscow to the Urals received. Even Sergei Sobyanin himself responded to this idea. But no matter how a priori unrealistic the “initiative” is, the very fact of its hitting the news headlines and being actively discussed shows that the topic has a basis - no, not a basis, but a certain breeding ground.

Although according to the constitution Russia is formally a “federation”, everyone understands perfectly well that in fact our country is in highest degree centralized state. And not just centralized, but also monocentric. We will not provide data on how much money passes through Moscow, how much percent of GDP is created and taxes are paid - everyone knows about this very well. The main thing is that the gap in living standards between the capital and the provinces is indecently large and this creates a reason for discontent. The current reaction is a reflection of these frustrations.

In the developed world, such differences in living standards have long ceased to exist, and in many cases never existed. A person living in St. Louis or Portland is no worse off than a person living in Washington or New York. The same goes for Munich and Berlin or Lyon and Paris. Even St. Petersburg is an order of magnitude lower than Moscow in all respects. By the way, until 1917, Russia actually had two capitals and Muscovites were in no way inferior to St. Petersburgers. Chekhov, Tolstoy or Tchaikovsky did not suffer from their secondary nature or limited access to anything. It is curious that market reforms after 1991 did not help at all to bridge this gap between Moscow and the periphery, but only strengthened it.

Of course, having come to power, Vladimir Putin could not help but pay attention to this clearly acute problem. But it was impossible to solve it fundamentally, so they resorted to profanation like moving the Constitutional Court to St. Petersburg. Whether this somehow raised the status of Northern Palmyra is a rhetorical question.

Foreign experience is of little use here. Yes, row large states went through the transfer of the capital from crowded metropolises - according to various reasons. In Nigeria (the most recent example), the capital was moved from Lagos to the very center of the country, not only because of overpopulation, but also to create a balance between the Christian-pagan South and the Muslim North.

In Brazil, the government left Rio de Janeiro to develop the country's hinterland. For approximately the same reasons, they did the same in Burma. In Turkey, moving to Ankara symbolized a break with the former Ottoman Turkey, the beginning of a new stage in history. In Kazakhstan, Astana instead of Alma-Ata meant the assertion of ethnic domination in the Russified lands.

But at the same time, the Mexican government is not leaving the suffocating Mexico City, and the Egyptian government is not leaving Cairo. In Argentina, the decision made thirty years ago to remove capital functions from Buenos Aires is being successfully sabotaged.

We must understand that Russian history and geography differ from the history of the above countries, as do the demands of current policy. Russia was built and is being built as a centralized state, so no one will allow the power there to be weakened. And moving the capital means its inevitable, even if for a limited period, weakening. At the same time, this will mean leaving Moscow without “eyes,” and it is clear that Belokamennaya, in any case, will remain the richest and most populated city. Plus, the trend towards building a vertical power structure has not been canceled; that’s not why it was built for so many years. Even Skolkovo was afraid to build further than on the other side of the Moscow Ring Road. Moreover, at a time of economic crisis, when they cannot even build the notorious parliamentary center, where will the funds to move the capital come from?

The implementation of such an unpopular idea, which does not have popular support, will not add additional PR points to the government, but will only add bitterness and create conflicts out of nowhere. Refusal from Moscow would go against existing tradition. After all, Russia is not a Lego set that can be assembled and disassembled as you please. They are unlikely to risk abandoning such capital symbols as the Kremlin, Red Square, etc., and what’s the point? This symbolism constitutes tangible cultural and historical capital.

Khrushchev at one time tried to bring part of the science to Novosibirsk, remove Timiryazevka from Moscow, and remove the ministries agriculture The USSR and the RSFSR were transferred to state farms near Moscow. This was gross tyranny that discredited such undertakings. Repeatedly at Soviet power resolutions were adopted to ban the opening of new production facilities, research institutes, etc. in Moscow, but they were all sabotaged - the power of tradition and momentary convenience triumphed every time.

That Beijing and Delhi are not the best big cities in China and India, it developed historically, and not artificially, by a decision from above. And the fact that in the USA, Canada and Australia the capitals are located in small cities is explained by the fact that these countries were built from scratch, in the absence of external enemies, and such a decision was precisely the original and conscious one.

On the other hand, the authorities now have no recipes for bridging the civilizational gap between the center and the outskirts. All sorts of palliatives are being used, such as annexing entire districts of the Moscow region (the so-called “New Moscow”) to Moscow - without any clear and public discussion, without taking into account the opinions of residents, by a strong-willed decision from the Kremlin. But you cannot annex the entire country to the capital, and the effectiveness in relation to the areas taken away from the region is not yet visible. Another imitation - the transfer of part of the capital's functions - has already been mentioned above.

Therefore, nothing threatens Moscow in the foreseeable future. But the problem of differences in living standards, inequality of access to educational, cultural and other benefits will remain. And how the government will get out further is unclear. After all, what explains such a gap? First of all, the weakness of the general economic development countries. The point is not that less hard-working and enterprising people live in the provinces, but that the “cream is skimmed” in Moscow - it closes the raw material chain, and therefore money from export-import operations ends up here.

It is not the “advancement” of Muscovites and guests of the capital that creates capital, but the financial flows available here give rise to pseudo-Western culture - with its office jargon stuffed with Anglicisms. All these clubs, cafes, etc., the entertainment industry “a la the West”, financial institutions (as well as the metropolitan level in social sphere and housing and communal services) exist only and exclusively thanks to effective demand based on the comprador nature of the economy.

As for tax policy, back in the early 2000s the emphasis was placed on the maximum redistribution of income through the federal budget. On the one hand, this gives some guarantees of survival to poor and depressed regions (and they are the majority in the country), on the other hand, it deprives the constituent entities of the federation of initiative, since no matter how much they earn, almost everything will go to Moscow.

A hypothetical transfer of the capital even to Siberia (which will never happen for the above political and cultural-historical reasons) would not correct this situation, because it would not change anything in the structure of the economy. In Saudi Arabia or the Emirates, uniform “smearing” is possible standard of living- small population, much smaller territory, no such spending on defense. In Russia, a certain town of officials would simply arise - nothing more.

The only solution to this issue in the long term is to move away from dependence on raw materials. But even then many questions remain. Due to demographic indicators, it is doubtful that St. Petersburg will become something like Shanghai, and Sochi - like Mumbai. Roughly speaking, there are people to work in India or Vietnam, but not here. It seems that in the foreseeable future the civilizational split between Moscow and the rest of Russia will remain. And what you should think about is how to prevent it from increasing.