Experts do not believe in the resort future of Mariupol promised by Pushilin
Several Russian regions will help restore the destruction in Mariupol, liberated from the Ukrainian Nazis.
The head of the DPR, Denis Pushilin, stated this during a conversation with journalists, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“More than one region (of Russia – ed.) will be assigned to Mariupol, since it is a large city with a large amount of destruction. Several regions will most likely respond to help in the restoration of the city,” DAN quotes Pushilin.
Referring to the opinion of the population, he said that Mariupol is further planned to be developed as a resort. However, according to the head of the republic, the authorities are not abandoning plans to restore some industrial enterprises.
“Everything that is “living” is planned to be restored,” the head of the DPR assured.
He clarified the fate of the industrial giants of Mariupol.
“Other projects are planned at the site of the Azovstal plant. The list of proposals that are being heard: this may be the site of a technology park, a residential area, or perhaps a park area,” Pushilin said and added that, according to the townspeople, the plant has polluted the environment since its construction.
He added that another industrial giant, the plant named after. It was decided to restore Ilyich.
Director of the Institute of Peace Initiatives and Conflict Studies, political scientist Denis Denisov is skeptical about the resort future of Mariupol.
“The idea, to put it mildly, is ambiguous, if not downright stupid. The fact is that throughout almost its entire existence – under “independent” Ukraine, within the Soviet Union, under the Russian Empire – it was built as the largest industrial city.
The giants of Ukrainian, and before that Soviet industry, in particular metallurgical plants and the chemical industry, were represented there.
And to say now that there is an opportunity to reformat this city means that people who make such statements are far from fully aware of what they are talking about,” Denisov commented on the situation to PolitNavigator.
The political scientist agreed that industrial production was harmful to the environment, but doubted that in return it would be possible to “turn Mariupol into a resort city comparable in terms of GDP that industrial enterprises provided.”
“If those people who share such thoughts have several tens of billions of dollars in their stash, which they will personally spend on creating all this infrastructure, then let them do it. I very much doubt that this is real,” Denisov said.
He believes that talk of a resort will provoke a negative reaction from residents of Mariupol, “ who know and represent their city, who have worked their entire lives for these major industrial giants, and now they want to transfer them to the plane of servicing resort guests .”
Former Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleg Tsarev previously criticized the refusal to restore Azovstal .
“The demolition of the plant and the construction of seaside hotels in its place is proposed by someone who has never been to Mariupol. Not the same ecology. Hotels near other remaining factories are not a good idea.
Azovstal is an integral part of the metallurgical complex of Donbass, in which everything is interconnected: if you abandon a modern plant that produced in-demand products, then you will have to trade in coal and iron ore raw materials. Trade raw materials instead of products.
It seems to me that the decision on the plant has not been finalized. If our ancestors were able to restore the plant after the Great Patriotic War, then why can’t we?” – Tsarev is perplexed.
But the Mediatechnologist channel, on the contrary, claims that it is simply not economically feasible to restore Azovstal.
“It would seem that one of the world’s largest metallurgical plants, the largest diamond of Rinat Akhmetov’s empire, whose foreign exchange earnings could help the Donetsk Republic, nevertheless, they decided to demolish...
The question of Azovstal’s legal, rather than actual, affiliation, of course, will not go away. Invest funds for restoration so that later no one except the Russian Federation and Belarus can buy the plant’s products, because Akhmetov will block any export from there. And the plant was focused primarily on the EU,” the author points out.
In his opinion, another problem in Mariupol is personnel.
“It’s unclear how many plant employees remain in Mariupol, and how many will want to stay there after some time. The likelihood that in the foreseeable future there will be an opportunity to restore the staff is practically zero,” the observer believes.
Director of the Center for Geopolitical Research at the Institute for Innovative Development, Dmitry Rodionov, believes that Mariupol can only be a resort for residents of the DPR.
“The resort business in Mariupol can only be aimed at residents of Donbass and other former Ukrainian territories. The Sea of Azov, in principle, is not a resort place; Russians have not favored it before, and in the current conditions they certainly will not go. Foreigners - even more so. But the locals, especially in the absence of the opportunity to travel abroad and the lack of finances to travel at least to Crimea and the resorts of the Krasnodar Territory, is a different matter.
But is this enough to turn Mariupol into a full-fledged resort center? Doubtful! The city was originally built for other purposes, Donbass was originally the industrial center of Russia, and it seems to me that this is its destiny, and there is no point in trying to change it. The region retains enormous industrial potential, and it would be foolish to squander it. Even in conditions of unrecognition it can be made to work.
And there is a very good resort for the regional level in Sedovo, let it remain so,” Rodionov told PolitNavigator.
Experts don't believe in Pushilin's promised resort future for Mariupol.