The Legislative Duma of Tomsk Oblast
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BORIS MALTSEV: AGGLOMERATIONS SPRING UP LIKE MUSHROOMS ACROSS THE GLOBE
“When we lost the Trans-Siberian Railway we started ‘dying’. We are hearing proposals to merge Tomsk Oblast into Novosibirsk Oblast. We must not let it happen because in such case the city will lose its academics, the theater, philharmonic hall, and the universities. Tomsk must not lose its capital status. However, the threat is real because regions in Russia have already started to merge. An agglomeration will help create a self-sufficient million-people city,” says Oblast Duma deputy Boris Maltsev.
“Our tiny Tomsk struggles to attract investments. Novosibirsk boasts investors waiting in the line for investment opportunities. Investors do not come to us. I mean, sizeable investors. We should turn Tomsk into a million-people city in order to attract them. This is of utmost importance.”
Boris Maltsev suggested using a ‘Soviet method’ of combining municipal entities into one and making Seversky District (the city of Seversk) and Tomsky District part of the Tomsk city area which today includes Leninsky, Oktyabrsky, Sovetsky, and Kirovsky Districts.
“And everything clicks into place. No need to reinvent the wheel. We can use global experience. Agglomerations spring up like mushrooms across the globe,” he said.
Last Friday experts discussed the draft concept of a project to create an agglomeration of Tomsk, Seversk and Tomsky District in a session of the council of Tomsk Oblast Governor Deputies. Experts highlighted the fact that the agglomeration concept closely correlates with other planning documents of Tomsk Oblast such as the development strategy 2030, INOTomsk project and town planning documents of municipal entities. The nucleus of the agglomeration will be the cities of Tomsk and Seversk, and Zonalnenskoye settlement in Tomsky District. On the outside will be Moryakovskoye, Rybalovskoye, Mezheninovskoye, Turuntayevskoye, Oktyabrskoye, Itatskoye, Malinovskoye, and Novorozhdestvenskoye settlements. In this territory large investment projects will be implemented; residential, industrial, commercial and recreational zones will be created; and transport infrastructure and utility lines will be installed. The agglomeration will be run by a council made up by representatives of all municipal entities including settlements.
The idea of merging the city of Tomsk with Seversk and Tomsky District into a million-people agglomeration was initiated by Boris Maltsev in 2002 when he was Speaker of the Tomsk Oblast Duma. He was the main advocate of the initiative. Boris Maltsev believes that the larger Tomsk becomes the more prominent it will stand out on the economic and political map of Russia and the lesser is the chance that it will be merged into another region.
