‘We might have merged into Greater Yekaterinburg in just one year if all the elected officials in every municipality involved assumed and left offices at one and the same time. The main challenge that Sverdlovsk Region’s legislative authorities need to resolve is the transition period. They need to decide just how citizens and officials should live and work when one town council’s powers have already expired and the executives of another one can still remain in office. This is why the realistic deadline for the official merger of local satellites into Greater Yekaterinburg would be the year 2012,’ says Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy.

‘The Governor has already come up with his proposals, so they must be discussed at the representative bodies’ meetings as well as at the public hearings. Upon receiving the citizens’ opinion, the Municipal Duma will have to make a decision and place its project with Sverdlovsk Region Duma. The regional Duma, in its turn, is to adopt the Greater Yekaterinburg Act that must have all the deadlines for merging, the municipal property records, and the resource database. It would be perfect if this act could be adopted at the end of 2010, but this will actually depend on the promptness of the regional Duma deputies’ actions,’ the Mayor explains.

‘Greater Yekaterinburg is a project whose impact will last for ages, not just for a year or five. Once the merger has been completed, Yekaterinburg city line will not be subject to any changes for several decades or maybe even centuries to come,’ Chernetskiy observes.