The development of creative spaces is an indicator of a particular district’s prosperity. Today, creative spaces generate around 3% of GDP and provide quite a large number of jobs – approximately 30 million — Irina Babyuk, Chair, the St. Petersburg Investment Committee.

Creative spaces provide a huge impetus for cultural and urban development. It is therefore vital for residents of a city to be able to fulfil their potential in these spaces — Elgiz Kachaev, Chairman, Committee for Entrepreneurship and Consumer Market Development of St. Petersburg.

Today, a unique environment has been created for the film industry. We offer effective prices: we are in a position whereby a top-quality product can be produced at a much lower cost than elsewhere in the world. Let’s take graphics studios: our price per man hour are between a sixth and an eighth of what it is in the USA and Europe, and half of what it is China, Korea or India — Evgeniy Melentyev, Chief Executive Officer, KINODANZ.

A notable characteristic of our cities is an extremely lopsided allocation of resources — Elena Zelentsova, Vice President, Director for Urban Environment Development, Skolkovo Foundation.

We can and must open creative clusters, but their quantity alone should not serve as an indicator. It seems to me that our cities are in particular need of a systemic and space-based approach to the anonymous outlying districts. We have become accustomed to the fact that during the Soviet period, our cities developed inorganically. We did everything according to established regulations, and these districts are not being managed by the residents themselves. We are always bemoaning this, but it is also down to the fact that a commuting culture prevails: in the morning the people travel to work in the centre, and in the evening they return to their residential districts. Consequently, these districts remain faceless areas of a city – places where we merely sleep — Elena Zelentsova, Vice President, Director for Urban Environment Development, Skolkovo Foundation.

In order to become leaders, we need to take into account the speed of implementing new technologies. On the one hand, this task rests on the shoulders of business, and on the other, government support is crucial, and could significantly accelerate these processes — Natalia Knyazhevich, Anchor, RBC Channel.

We provide accompanying support for major projects. We have strong teams working on our major investment projects. These teams are very capable of operating independently, so our task is merely to provide accompanying support — Irina Babyuk, Chair, the St. Petersburg Investment Committee.

The need to create an environment and the corresponding infrastructure is a vital factor in attracting young people, who are the engine of this source of growth — Evgeniy Melentyev, Chief Executive Officer, KINODANZ.

It’s important to create a context to change the way business is done, a context which will lead to the emergence of added value — Konstantin Polunin, Partner, Managing Director, The Boston Consulting Group.

Today’s business environment is built upon creative components. It is not excavators, vacuum cleaners and speakers that are being sold any more, but services. Therefore, in order to work in this area in these new conditions, we need completely different skills and people. And one of the most important abilities today is the ability to learn, develop and be creative — Konstantin Polunin, Partner, Managing Director, The Boston Consulting Group.

Our education system is still academic in nature, but new professions are emerging, and it is also important to focus on these. Education is therefore key. <...> Is provides a foundation in any sphere, without which it is incredibly difficult to achieve further professional development — Sofia Trotsenko, Founder, Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, President, Winzavod Foundation in Support of Contemporary Art.

We are accustomed to viewing the creative industries as a union of culture and economics. It is now vital to add a third component – the development of urban spaces. <...>The features of city districts must be taken into account, and must be cultivated via the creative industries specifically — Elena Zelentsova, Vice President, Director for Urban Environment Development, Skolkovo Foundation.

In a manner, we have to reassemble strategies for cities. This would enable us to identify the strong points of a district and its specific features, study the possibilities provided by its spaces, and from that, build city programmes — Elena Zelentsova, Vice President, Director for Urban Environment Development, Skolkovo Foundation.

It is important to understand the context and situation of an area where a creative cluster is being built. People very frequently contact us with a request to build a Winzavod somewhere in a region. I always refuse these requests because the most important thing is to understand the historical and cultural context of the place. It is not possible to just take something in Moscow and duplicate it — Sofia Trotsenko, Founder, Winzavod Center for Contemporary Art, President, Winzavod Foundation in Support of Contemporary Art.