‘According to the city’s General Development plan, we need to stop putting more buildings within the city. We do put up a lot of unique buildings thanks to frequent use of foreign architects with global recognition,’ head of the city’s chief architecture and urban development authority Mikhail Vyatkin announced in the course of a report made on Yekaterinburg ‘s General Development plan.

The plan, valid through the year 2025, was adopted on July 6, 2004 and presented to Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel on July 4, 2008. The Governor spoke about the need to have more housing and commercial estate constructed.

‘The need to put up more buildings, including shopping malls, is quite obvious. Yekaterinburg aspires to be Russia’s third most important city after Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and we have the potential to really make it into the country’s No. 3. So, the opponents of intensive commercial construction process within the city must understand that the trading areas must and will keep on developing. Yekaterinburg needs seven times more shopping areas: we’ll then reach the level of New York City, and the economic importance of this shouldn’t be underestimated,’ Eduard Rossel said.