July 15, 2014. Yekaterinburg has grown into one of Russia's top cities in terms of high-rise construction over the last two decades: such was the conclusion made by participants of a discussion forum on high-rise construction in Russia as the driver of industrial growth outside capital cities; the forum took place within the framework of the 5th international exhibition Innoprom in Yekaterinburg.
'I think the fact that this topic is now under discussion in Yekaterinburg is no coincidence. Yekaterinburg is currently one of Russia's tallest cities. Moreover, it is one of the world's Top100 tallest cities as well. As I said, this is not a pure coincidence; this is the result of the policy enforced over the last twenty years,' Soviet of the Federation Senator Arkady Chernetsky said.
According to Chernetsky, these are only Moscow and Moscow Region that are comparable with Yekaterinburg in terms of high-rise construction output.
Experts from Moscow's RBC.Nedvizhimost also consider Yekaterinburg to be the high-rise construction market leader. According to their estimates, there are currently 40 buildings that are over 25 storeys high in Yekaterinburg. 80% of those are apartment buildings and 20% are used as commercial estate.
'Yekaterinburg is the largest and yet the most compact Russian city with the population of over 1m people. It has some 40 twenty-five-storey buildings, 4 buildings that are over 100m high, and 2 buildings that are about 200m high,' says Ignat Bushuyev, Editor-in-Chief RBC.Nedvizhimost.