On the eve of the International Women’s Day Rustam Minnikhanov has a meeting with women-representatives of federal and local mass media

In his opening speech at a traditional meeting with women-representatives of federal and local mass media in the Kazan Kremlin on the eve of the International Women’s Day, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov said: “We have been living under very difficult situation of pandemic for two year, and the profession of a journalist requires from you always to be at battle stations. We are very grateful to you for this”.

He underlined that information is always very important in the modern world and handed in state awards of the republic to the most outstanding representatives of mass media.

Minnikhanov also answered question from representatives of the federal and local journalists concerning the social sphere of life.

Thus, speaking about the shortage of social facilities such as schools, kindergartens and policlinics in new residential areas he said: “We should solve this problem all together. The developer must also take part in making decisions what to build – a kindergarten or a policlinic”. He reminded that there are regional and federal programs for development of transport and social infrastructure “but currently the pace of housing construction is in advance of the development of the social infrastructure”. He added that huge resources are needed to solve this problem.

Tatarstan President also said that the republic has not solved the issues of building an infrastructure for families with many children. “We have allocated land plots for free but according to calculations made 5-7 years ago the development of infrastructure would cost 40-45bn roubles which are a huge amount of money and it will be not easy to solve these questions without the federal support”.

Answering the question about rehabilitation measures for those who went through COVID 19, Minnikhanov said that a treatment and rehabilitation center fitted with the latest equipment was opened in the city clinical hospital N7 and the necessary infrastructure is being developed in the cities of the republic.

Speaking about motherhood and children, he said that the most acute problem was the decrease of the birth rate all over the country. He reminded that a corner stone was laid into the construction of a new perinatal center in Kazan as “one of the most important tasks for today is to raise the birth rate”.

When journalist asked Minnikhanov whether he uses marketplaces and Internet buys, he said that the e-trade is very promising today and the number of Tatarstan entrepreneurs in marketplaces grew 7 times in 2021. Telling about his personal experience, he said: “I tried to order a sweatshirt and everything worked – they took the money and gave me the sweatshirt”