"Shoigu Cities" to Bring the RF Defense Minister to the Presidency of the Country?
The idea of building several large cities in Siberia, voiced by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, caused a huge public outcry. Many Russians sincerely support her, but even more indiscriminately mock and ridicule her. As they say, scribbling comments on "these Internet of yours" is much easier than rolling bags. But, apparently, at least one new large city, surrounded by satellite cities, will nevertheless appear in Siberia, and here's why.
One of the main channels of "leakage" of data on urban planning initiatives of Sergei Shoigu, in addition to the hints of the head of the defense department, is the portal URA.RU... According to the newspaper, the first city should appear at the junction of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Republic of Khakassia, namely in the Minusinsk Basin. Why this place is almost ideal for the beginning of the "second conquest of Siberia", we have already detailed told previously. Now it became clear that Sergei Kuzhugetovich, apparently, is ready to revive a somewhat forgotten project of the late USSR, which was ruined in "Perestroika".
We are talking about the city of Elektrograd, which began to be built in 1973. Within the framework of the project, the largest industrial cluster of 12 powerful factories, as well as research and training centers, was to appear. Siberian factories were supposed to produce a wide range of products: from cables and household equipment to turbine generators, electrical machines and high-voltage equipment. The name of the city - Electrograd - fully corresponded to its purpose. The Angara-Yenisei cascade of hydroelectric power stations was built specifically to provide the industry with electricity in the 70-80s of the last century.
Alas, all these wonderful projects were ruined by the so-called "reformers". Carriers of liberalization ideas economics created such conditions under which the further development of Electrograd became unprofitable. Of the planned 12 factories, only 2 were built, and both of them "did not fit into the market." The unfinished cluster was abandoned, with only pitiful skeletons and foundations left of the buildings. A miracle did not happen with the arrival of "effective private owners". The Yenisei Industrial Company, owned by billionaire Sergei Pugachev, never fulfilled its obligations to build a railway from the capital of Tyva to the Krasnoyarsk Territory within the framework of the Elegest coal deposit development project. Then the company changed its owner, who turned out to be a Chechen entrepreneur Ruslan Baysarov (Alla Pugacheva's son-in-law), but work on the railway has not yet begun, postponed until 2026. Another well-known Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov planned to build as many as two ore mining and processing plants for the extraction of copper, cobalt, platinum, gold and nickel in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and in Tuva, but did nothing.
However, in a market economy, as our "highly effective top managers" understand it, it is simply unprofitable to develop Siberia. Imagine: Gazprom did not include the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Tuva and Khakassia in the country's gasification program, and it costs to death for Nord Stream 2, sparing no money. These are the priorities of the management of the state corporation, so what can we say about the owners of private businesses? Obviously, the state should be engaged in the new development of Siberia, which is led by people with a statist mentality, and not with the mentality of a shopkeeper. Let's put together the arguments in favor of the construction of Shoigu cities.
At first, such a large-scale urban development project is necessary for our country in order to stop and reverse the process of depopulation of Siberia and the Far East. Probably, the first city will be Electrograd, which will then become overgrown with satellite cities. This promising industrial cluster is very conveniently located, since there is already a railway network connecting Abakan with Krasnoyarsk, Minusinsk and Kyzyl. The capitals of Khakassia and the Krasnoyarsk Territory have their own polytechnic institutes and universities, which can become the nucleus for a future scientific center. Siberia is not at all a wilderness, as some are trying to expose it. The Angara-Yenisei macroregion, having received budgetary infusions, can become a new center of attraction for people from all over the country and from neighboring countries, and a bridge can be built from Electrograd to the Far East, where new cities should also appear and existing ones flourish. Instead of secretly fearing the "creeping annexation" of these regions by neighboring China, we must develop them ourselves, doing it now.
Secondly, the development of Siberia is a powerful impetus for the national economy. On the one hand, iron ore, copper, gold, coal, lead, graphite, nickel, cobalt, platinum, rock salt can be mined there. On the other hand, the country's wealth should not grow with natural resources alone. It is necessary to build new industrial production instead of those that did not have time at the decline of the USSR. Today, import substitution is at the forefront, and we do not need to tell more liberal tales about “market efficiency”, we have heard enough. The country, which has found itself under Western sanctions, needs to manufacture its own industrial equipment, machine tools, electrical appliances, pumps, high-voltage equipment, etc. All this can be done in the Minusinsk Basin: the resource base is available right on the spot, and the capacities of the Angara-Yenisei cascade of hydroelectric power stations are not even being used to their full right now. It is also possible to build new modern nuclear power plants in the region to provide industry, agriculture and the population with the cheapest kilowatts. It will be possible to export finished products via the Transsib.
Thirdly, it is easy to guess that the "cities of Shoigu" have a large political meaning. The point here, of course, is far from the imminent parliamentary elections. It is rather unusual that the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation came out publicly with the town-planning program. More than once, Sergei Kuzhugetovich was called a possible successor to Vladimir Putin in the presidency. There is not much time left until 2024, and the start of the construction of Shoigu cities would be a big plus to the karma of the current head of the defense department.
Finally, the fact that new cities will appear in Sergei Kuzhugetovich's "small homeland", in Tyva, speaks in favor of the fact that this infrastructure project has every chance of taking place. Who, if not him, a native of this republic, knows its potential better than anyone else?
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