Salekhard features a rich history and has a great future
Mr. Kononenko, at the end of the year, they usually sum up what has been done. What were the main events in the life of the capital, in your opinion?
There are lots of important events happening in our city, including those of international significance. The 70-th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War is certainly very special. Salekhard celebrated this great day together with the whole country. Victory Day is our history. History must be known and its lessons must be learned. We must pass the memory of our grandfathers’ heroic deeds on to our children. Unfortunately, today historical facts are sometimes distorted deliberately, and the news feeds bring shocking examples of the horrible consequences caused by such distortions.
Our city’s anniversary is another event of primary importance. All of us did our best to celebrate it decently, and, I believe, we really did it. Another important event, in my opinion, was naming our Children's School of Arts after Elena Obraztsova. Today, our school is the only one in the world to bear the name of this great opera singer.
What did the administration manage to do for the city and its residents?
The task of the city administration is to organize a comfortable life for people, so that their houses were warm and light, the streets were clean and beautiful, the schools and kindergartens that our children attend were modern, so that adults had good conditions for work and leisure. To this end, we have been developing the areas of sports, culture, education, social services. And I can responsibly declare that we have made a considerable progress in all these areas.
Kindergartens and schools have been renovated, the capacity of preschool facilities has increased. The roads as well as the transport stop facilities are repaired, virtually all the city streets have adequate lightning. Despite the economic difficulties, we have managed to repair a significant part of infrastructure. Heat pipelines and electrical networks have been substituted. The improvement of children’s playgrounds and sports grounds is going on. This year we have provided additional apparatus in the sports facilities. For these purposes, the municipality acquired sports complexes that include horizontal bars, parallel bars, gymnastics balance beam, maze, press benches. So far, not every yard has a playground or a sports ground, but there are ones within walking distance, in every district of the city.
In addition, with the support of patrons two multifunctional sports grounds with an artificial turf have been opened, where you can play hockey in winter, and mini football, volleyball, basketball in summer. In September we opened the children and youth sports school. We had to convert the bathing and wellness complex into the sports and fitness facility. The layout of the building premises was fully changed, great attention was paid to the security of athletes.
We plan to commission another kindergarten per 200 kids by the end of the year, extensive renovations have been conducted in sports and culture center "Geolog" ("Geologist"), a renovated swimming pool, a gym and a concert hall have been commissioned.
This year, we have continued with the distribution of free land plots for individual housing construction for families with many children. According to the activity plan "Road Map", additional 28 families have received 600 sq m land plots for individual construction at the expense of the local budget.
Of course, this year has been pretty tough in terms of financial situation. Despite this, the city administration work has been socially orientated.
What are the priorities of the municipal policies for the next year?
We have plenty of plans, of course. But first and foremost, we will continue to address social issues related to the implementation of Orders of the Russian President. Within the framework of the targeted investment program of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region we also plan to continue with the construction of engineering facilities in the city districts and microdistrict: quarters No. 49, No. 25, Yamalsky, Teremki, Solnechny, Mirugina Str., south-eastern part of the city. The plans also include further reconstruction of sewage treatment facilities and the construction of the second line of the landfill of municipal solid waste, the start of the construction of an electric power plant in Pelvozh settlement, construction of utility networks for an under-roof playground that is currently under the process of construction and reconstruction of Obyezdnaya street and the bridge crossing.
In addition, we plan to continue with the permanent housing construction; 30 thousand square meters of living premises is to be commissioned, including individual houses. In accordance with the "Road Map" we plan to continue providing multiple children families with land plots for the construction of individual houses. These are the plans for the nearest future. Of course, there are still many other issues that must be addressed to make living and work conditions in Salekhard comfortable.