Olga Papadina has been a busy woman. Being the General Director of the Moscow Urban Forum, she and her team had been working tirelessly for successfully organising this year’s forum, which saw mayors, town planners, investors and specialists from around the world coming to Moscow on December 11-14 and exchanging their views on urban development. Mumbai Mayor Snehal Ambekar was also present at the forum. In an interaction with a few reporters in Moscow on the sidelines of the Forum, Papadina spoke about the main goals of the event, and how it would help cities in tackling their challenges. Edited excerpts:

What’s your own assessment of this year’s Forum? And how the Forum is going to help Moscow and other cities tackle their problems?

My team is organising this Forum for the fourth year now. We don’t have any practical applications to solve the problems a city faces. We offer a discussion platform for business people and the larger audience to come and discuss the problems and future action plans. Of course, Moscow is not going to change the next day. It will take time. And I think our Forum will help this change in the days to come.

Speaking about the goals of the Forum, it’s also an education mission and an enlightenment mission. Our teams are conducting studies and research, and public lecturers on urban development. We also publish books. We provide a networking platform for the Moscow city government, for the expat community and for the business community.

Nations may have different approaches, but cities have the same agendas to look after their citizens. Do you think this forum, because it’s about cities not about countries, can help Moscow make the geopolitical difficulties of Russia little easier?

I am not an expert on this. So I can’t give an expert’s opinion on this issue. But I can tell you that more research is under way, and there will be communication between the city and the country. That’s what we are doing currently. And at this forum, we also try to present experts’ views on this situation. It’s in the interests of our study.

What about this year’s participation in the Forum?

You know the political situation in Russia at this time is little difficult. But despite those difficulties, we have delegations here from all over the world. We have 26 delegations, including 13 Mayors of cities from all over the world. It’s also a great honour for us to see the Mayors of Russian cities here. So we see the Forum is popular not only in Russia, but in other parts of the world too. As regards the number of participants in the Forum, I can say that the number is huge compared with last year. There are around 5,000 people here, though we are yet to get the exact numbers.

Mumbai Mayor Snehal Ambekar was here…

Yes, she was here. She was with her husband. I got a chance to talk to her. She participated in different sessions. It was for the first time she’s in Moscow. We are happy that she’s here and hope that she enjoyed it. (In the opening plenary session on December 12, Ambekar said Mumbai’s top priority is to provide shelter and other basic needs to all citizens).

Is there any particular cooperation between the two cities?

As far as I know, there are no special agreements between Mumbai and Moscow. Mumbai is not a partner of the Moscow Urban Forum. But the Mayor was here. She saw everything. If she finds it very interesting, we hope in the next year Mumbai may be a partner city. There are lots of similarities between Mumbai and Moscow. And we could exchange our experiences as well.

The writer was in Moscow at an invitation from the Moscow Urban Forum

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