Encircle the capital

President Dmitry Medvedev, speaking at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, said that it is necessary to create a “capital federal district.” According to him, “in order to improve the development of the Moscow metropolis, for the purposes of the financial center and simply to make life easier for a huge number of people, the issue of expanding the borders of Moscow may also be considered.” Thus, the new federal district, if it is created, should go beyond the current borders of Moscow, and, as the president added, “with the transfer of a significant share of the administrative functions of the federal level and, accordingly, state institutions beyond these borders.”

At the same time, the idea expressed by Medvedev is apparently not connected with plans expressed more than once about the merger of Moscow and the Moscow region. In any case, the mayor of the capital, Sergei Sobyanin, said after the president’s speech that there was no talk of uniting the region and the city.