The first Russian Creative Week in the Urals is taking place in the Vidgof Grand Hotel. More than 100 representatives of creative industries are participating in the business programme of the forum – experts from Moscow, Perm region, Saratov, Sverdlovsk, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk, Kaliningrad regions, Khanty-Mansiysk, Yamalo-Nenets autonomous districts, Krasnoyarsk region and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). More than 2000 people registered for the forum.

The central events of the first day were a field meeting of the Public Chamber on the development of the creative economy in the Urals Federal District and a field meeting of the Russian State Council Commission on Economics and Finance.

Opportunities for the development of local creative brands were discussed at the strategic session “Made in Ural: How to Promote Urals Brands”. The discussion brought together representatives of federal and regional authorities, federal and local creative businesses.

“I made a decision to create a regional film commission, which will be in charge of rebate and promotion of our region so that films are shot here and high level film productions are made. Shooting films in the Urals will help promote the territory,” said Alexey Teksler, Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region, at the session.

He noted the positive dynamics of creative industries development in the Chelyabinsk region. “In our region, there are already more than 10,000 enterprises engaged in creative industries. I think we will go beyond 80 billion roubles of turnover by the end of 2023, when we summarise the final results,” said the head of the region.

Participants of the session “Content Strategies in Media: Money, Audience, Social Responsibility” discussed the peculiarities of mass media as a creative industry. The speakers shared their views on how the business component of this sphere is reconciled with the transmission of values and educational function. International media was represented by Ksenia Komissarova, Editor-in-Chief of TV BRICS, who spoke about the concept of the media forming a positive news agenda.

“Ultimately, the mission of TV BRICS is not only to promote co-operation between countries, but also between people. To rid society of misunderstandings. Another important feature of our format is the almost complete absence of negativity. We are looking for other ways to attract an audience. Is it possible to monetise a positive agenda? I can say that the path we have chosen has turned out to be the right one. We are now seeing a sharp influx of new users who are tired of negativity. Recently, TV BRICS has been emphasising personal stories of people living in Russia and abroad. This is really interesting” 

Ksenia Komissarova Editor-in-Chief of TV BRICS

Yue Mengzhan, a student of South Ural State University, who took part in the session “Industrial Heritage as a Resource for Creative Projects”, shared what he learnt at the event in an exclusive commentary to TV BRICS.

“I am currently studying at the Faculty of Architecture at the South Ural State University in Chelyabinsk. This conference was very useful for me, I learnt about projects to develop industrial architectural heritage in various Russian cities. We should not only preserve historical buildings, but also develop them and integrate them into the modern urban landscape,” he said.

Head of the School of Creative Industries at the Tomsk Governor’s College of Culture and Arts Alexandra Shmakova told TV BRICS in her commentary what a creative industry specialist should be like.

“He must necessarily be professional, have an eye and creativity, love his work. Customers will give feedback. The tasks for such a specialist have changed a bit with the advent of neural networks. In particular, we are still talking about designers. Neural networks do not need to be overtaken, you should add them to your arsenal,” she said.

Alexandra Shmakova explained that all schools of creative industries provide training in six areas: sound engineering, animation, modern electronic music, design, photo and video production, and augmented reality. The training system, she added, involves practitioners as teachers, high-tech equipment, and obligatory participation of students in project activities.

Photo: 
TV BRICS