A wonderful tale of two cities
THE City of Cape Town was very successful in receiving various international awards in 2022. It is such a pleasure to see how this unique city, which, in my humble opinion, is one of the most beautiful in the world, attracts more and more tourists, investments and major events, year after year.
In October the travel industry's most prestigious awards programme, World Travel Awards, named the Mother City as the continent's most attractive travel destination for the second consecutive year. The heart of Cape Town, the majestic Table Mountain, was included in the list of ‘7 new Wonders of the World’ in 2011 and this year it was called the “Best Viewing Platform in Africa”. Finally, it deservedly won in the nomination "Best Airport in Africa".
The capital of Russia, Moscow, is located far from the ocean, although it has the unofficial nickname of Five Seas Harbour. It only has the Vorobyovy Mountains, which are actually hills. Despite this, in February 2022, the UN recognised Moscow as the best metropolis in the world in the categories “Quality of Life” and “Infrastructure Development”.
The following data was released by its division ‘City Prosperity Index’. In the first category, the Russian capital bypassed London and Paris. In the second category, silver and bronze medals also went to the capitals of European states – France and Great Britain respectively. According to this research, Moscow was ranked third out of 29 cities after Singapore and Toronto in the overall world ranking.
In September, the city of Moscow, that was founded in 1147, celebrated its 875th anniversary. Nowadays, it attracts tourists and migrant workers from all over the world and hosts major international events, such as the World Cup in 2018.
The constantly growing population, as well as new challenges dictated by time, force the city to search for new infrastructure solutions. Therefore,
100 new metro stations were built in Moscow between 2011 and 2021. So as for the year of 2022, the metropolitan’s metro consists of 14 lines with a total length of 438 6km with 250 stations. More than 40 stations are of cultural heritage and the metropolitan’s underground tours are loved by the city’s guests.
In addition to that, the millesimal electric bus was introduced to the streets of the capital last year. That brought the share of environmentally-friendly transport of passenger traffic in Moscow to 70%. It is expected that by 2030 the entire urban transport will run on green energy.
At the same time, progressive development has its downside: the constant increase in the number of cars as a result of consistently high building density within the city centre. There are about 4.4 million cars registered in Moscow with approximately a million of those being introduced over the past 10 years.
The problem is that the central districts of Moscow were designed without taking modern traffic into account. The best engineering minds as well as artificial intelligence have been working on defying this challenge. Nevertheless, despite the complexity of this issue, a definite solution was found.
Currently, four so-called ”hords’ (systems of special highways, interchanges and exits, designed to unload the already existing routes encircling the city) are being built. At the moment, only one of them, the Northwest Chord with a total length of 83km, has been completed.
It links three metropolitan districts – northern, north-western and western. Three more have been partially built – the North-eastern and South-eastern Chords and the Southern Rocade.
As a result, travel time from suburbs to central districts has decreased by 10 minutes in the past 10 years with drivers spending 20% less time in traffic jams.
Another decent improvement in the transport situation was the implementation of ground railway transport – the Moscow Central Ring and the construction of the so-called Moscow Central Diameters (MCD). These are direct routes crossing central districts of the capital from suburb to suburb. For this purpose, the existing railway infrastructure was modernised and became the basis for the new passenger service.
The unique feature of the project was the introduction of a single ticket, service and navigation system, which made it possible to organically fit new destinations into the existing ecosystem. It is assumed that the implementation of the entire MCD project will improve the transport infrastructure of the capital by 12 %.
As in any other large city, Moscow is a living organism that is developing and constantly searching for effective solutions that meet the spirit of time. Urban dwellers are directly involved in the process of making some city decisions in order to improve their everyday life and well-being. In 2014 the “Involved Citizen” programme (a system of electronic polls) was launched in the capital.
The main objective of the project is to obtain the opinion of citizens on topical issues of development. “Involved Citizen” surveys are divided into three categories: Citywide, Sectoral and District. Participation in the surveys is rewarded with free tickets to cultural events or discounts on public transport fees.
In 2020, citizens influenced more than 3 100 decisions of the Moscow government. Issues related to the competence of the executive authorities of Moscow are being put to a vote via ‘Involved Citizen’. Polls are not conducted in the event of minor issues or if there is a conflict of interest.
In September, 2014 cooperation between ‘Involved Citizen’ and the voluntary search and rescue team ‘Liza Alert’ began, making it possible for users of the application to get access to the photos of missing people in Moscow.
The program started at the beginning of the so-called ‘mushroom pick-up season’ when many people get lost in the suburban forests. Adults missing data was accessible only for those who indicated the area of the missing person, while information about missing children was accessible for everyone. The two-way communication included the ability to indicate whether the user saw the missing person, contact interested parties and participate in the search and rescue operation.
Since 2014 the “My Street” programme has been launched as a part of the “Involved Citizen”.
This programme allows citizens to express their opinion on urban problems and future changes.
Later on, that program became an independent project dedicated to urban improvement.
Moscow cares about its inhabitants. The city has a system of Public Services Centres, which includes more than 130 “My Documents” offices in Moscow, where one can comfortably receive more than 280 public services every day.
An electronic recording system allows a citizen to avoid waiting in long queues when processing documents, plus it makes it easier to get medical assistance in city clinics and interact with educational organisations regarding the education of children.
Being the centre of attraction for both domestic and international investment the Russian capital uses its financial potential for other objectives as well. Let us quote the Mayor of Moscow Mr Sergey Sobyanin: “By supporting special military operations we must realise that this is done not only for the security of Russia but for the safety of the people of Donbass. It is important for us to restore normal life there.
This is the task of all other Russian regions. We give a helping hand to Donetsk and Lugansk. In Lugansk we are already being busy repairing schools, roads and communal facilities. There are still problems with water supplies. Donetsk is still under constant shelling and it is dangerous to work there. But (nevertheless), we are preparing facilities there for the heating in winter season.”
As a dynamically-developing modern city, the Russian capital carefully preserves its cultural identity. And especially in this I notice some common features of Moscow and Cape Town, which can be expressed in a succinct phrase – the city is a unity of dissimilarities. Inhabited by representatives of different cultures, these cities accept everyone, offering ways for peaceful and productive coexistence, remembering the past but looking to the future.
By supporting special military operations we must realise that this is done not only for the security of Russia but for the safety of the people of Donbass. It is important for us to restore normal life there