The competition commission of the All-Russian competition for the creation of tourist and recreational clusters and the development of ecotourism in Russia, chaired by Sergei Ivanov, special representative of the President of the Russian Federation for environmental protection, ecology and transport, announced 34 finalists who presented their programs.
33 projects were chosen based on the results of the Expert Group's assessment and voting by the members of the Competition Commission, and 1 project - based on the results of the popular vote.
The finalists included 30 subjects of the Russian Federation from 7 federal districts.
7 projects were from the Far Eastern Federal District. The second place in the number of finalists was taken by the Volga Federal District - 6 projects. The third place was shared by the North-Western, Central and Siberian Federal Districts - 5 projects in each. In the Southern Federal District 4 projects reached the final, in the Urals Federal District - 2.
The finalists are:
The Republic of Bashkortostan. TRK "Mighty Iremel"
The Republic of Bashkortostan. TRK "Heart of Bashkiria"
The Republic of Buryatia. "Tunkinskaya Dolina"
The Republic of Kalmykia."Chernye Zemli"
The Republic of Karelia. "Cluster Muromsky"
The Komi Republic. "Virgin Komi Forests"
The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)."Lena"
The Republic of Tatarstan. "Vysokogorsky"
The Republic of Tatarstan. "Kamskoe Ustye"
The Republic of Khakassia. "Gornaya Khakassia"
The Altai Region. "Katun"
The Kamchatka Krai. "Reserved Kamchatka: Land of People, Volcanoes and Salmon"
The Krasnodar Region. «Kurdzhipsky"
The Krasnoyarsk Region. "Arctic. Putorana plateau "
The Primorsky Krai. "Land of the Leopard"
The Khabarovsk Region. "Whales of the Sea of Okhotsk"
The Volgograd Region. "Volzhskaya Riviera"
The Volgograd Region. Art Park "Another reality ELTON ULTRA"
The Irkutsk Region. "South Baikal"
The Kaluga Region. "Kaluzhskoe Porechye"
The Kemerovo Region. "Tourist and recreational cluster of prospective development - Mezhdurechensk"
The Leningrad Region. "Varangian Sea"
The Murmansk Region. "Khibiny for all"
The Novgorod Region. "Bolshaya Valdai Trail"
The Orenburg Region. "Atmosphere.Step"
The Ryazan Oblast. "Paustovsky"
The Samara Region. "Samarskaya Luka»
The Sakhalin Region. "Laguna Busse"
The Sakhalin Region. "South Kuriles"
The Sverdlovsk Region. "Belaya Mountain"
The Smolensk region. “Smolenskoe Poozerie. Origins of Russia "
The Tula Region. "Romantsevskie Gory"
The Chelyabinsk region. "Gorny Ural"
The Yaroslavl region. The Pleshcheyevo Lake National Park
and "Pereslavl-Zalessky"
According to the special representative of the President of the Russian Federation for environmental protection, ecology and transport Sergei Ivanov, an active struggle was waged between SPNAs to reach the final.
“Such interest in the competition at the highest level suggests that today Russia really needs to create special territories that will become centers of attraction for tourists. Our country is amazingly beautiful, so our main task is to show it and tell about natural resources both to our citizens and to the entire world community,” he said.
The Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation Dmitry Kobylkin stressed the need for sustainable development of regions and the creation of infrastructure through tourism.
“The task of the competition is to develop complex solutions for the creation and development of ecological tourism clusters. They should become centers of sustainable development of the regions, where, thanks to tourists and the creation of all the necessary infrastructure, small and medium-sized businesses will develop and new jobs will appear. Therefore, when choosing projects, in addition to the quality of preparing the application, we took into account three components: tourism potential, environmental component and team interaction. I am confident that new and interesting opportunities will open up for the winners,” he said.
At the next stage, the finalists will have to take part in a specially developed Acceleration program, and then present their projects to potential investors and representatives of relevant ministries and departments. As a result of training in the Acceleration program, a “packaged product” ready for implementation will be created - economically feasible master plans for tourist and recreational clusters in protected areas and adjacent territories.
Svetlana Chupsheva, General Director of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives to Promote New Projects, also said that the competition will end on October 16, when the Competition Commission will announce 10 winning territories.
“I hope that next year the first of these clusters will be able to receive visitors,” she added.
The All-Russian competition for the creation of tourist and recreational clusters and the development of ecotourism in Russia was attended by 219 teams, which included 1,075 participants. In total, the project https://priroda.life/ registered 523 protected areas in 81 constituent entities of the Russian Federation with a total area of more than 112 million hectares. However, only 115 teams from 68 constituent entities of the Russian Federation in 8 federal districts, uniting 928 people, were able to prepare a full package of documents.
The total number of natural areas within the framework of competitive applications is 231 (of which 63 SPNAs of federal significance and 168 SPNAs of regional significance). Their total area is 58 million hectares, which is almost ¼ of all protected areas in the country.
The representatives of the Northwestern Federal District showed the greatest activity, having submitted 21 applications. From the Central Federal District 20 applications were received, from the Siberian - 19, from the Volga and Southern Federal Districts - 18 and 14 applications, respectively. 11 applications were submitted from the Far Eastern Federal District, and 8 and 4 applications were received from the Ural and North Caucasian Federal Districts, respectively.
All projects submitted to the competition have passed three levels of expertise and evaluation. At the first stage, the operator of the competition, the Agency for Strategic Development "CENTER", carried out a technical examination, which included an analysis and assessment of the completeness of the information provided by the participants in the application. Then the members of the Expert Group, which included specialists in the field of architecture, economics, development of territory and facilities, financial modeling, ecology, sociology, marketing, tourism and other areas related to the development of ecological tourism in protected areas, conducted an expert online assessment and rating applications.
The resulting rating of applications was submitted for consideration to the members of the Competition Commission, which made a decision to include 3 additional applications in the finalists, thus increasing the number of regional interdisciplinary teams to participate in the Acceleration Program to 33.
The Contest Commission named the 34th finalist - the Art Park SEC "Another reality ELTON ULTRA" in the Volgograd region, which became the third according to the results of the popular vote and reached the final.Tthe projects that took 1st and 2nd places (the project "Kamskoye Ustye" from Tatarstan "Volzhskaya Riviera" is also from the Volgograd region) were highly appreciated by experts and have already reached the top.
The organizer of the competition is the Agency for Strategic Initiatives. Operator - Agency for Strategic Development "CENTER". The competition is supported by four specialized departments: the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of the Russian Federation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic, and the Federal Agency for Tourism of the Russian Federation.
