Sergei Sobyanin: Moscow is the largest center for the development of the creative industries

Moscow is the largest center for the development of creative industries in the country. Cinema, music, video games, publishing, design, theater and advertising not only make the life of citizens more entertaining, but have also established themselves as the most important sector of the capital’s economy. Its share in the total gross regional product in 2023 reached 10.1 percent, or 3.3 trillion rubles. Sergei Sobyanin wrote about the development of the creative industries in a post on his blog. 

“Over the past five years, the number of organizations and individual entrepreneurs active in this area has grown by 11.7 percent and already exceeds 113,000. As a result, more and more Muscovites find themselves working in the creative professions. The revenue of companies in the sector is also growing steadily: last year the creative industries sector earned 103.8 percent more than in 2019—6.7 trillion rubles,” the Mayor of Moscow wrote.

Cinema

Despite sanctions and other challenges of recent years, the capital’s film industry is on the rise. Over 80 percent of Russian movies and TV series are filmed in Moscow.

Last year, around 120 projects were filmed on the sites of the Moscow Cinema Cluster, 2.5 times more than in 2023. Among them were box office and on-line blockbusters of 2024–2025, including He Was not on the Lists, Kholop-2, The Master and Margarita, Ice-3, Baba Yaga saves the New Year, The Last Bogatyr—Legacy, One Hundred Years Ago,The Flying Ship, and The Word of a Kid: Blood on the Pavement.

The Moscow Cinema Cluster, created on the initiative of the Moscow City Government, today unites several venues. Among them is the famous Gorky Film Studio, where large-scale modernization works will be completed by the end of the year on the historical studio territory on Sergei Eisenstein Street and also on its site in Valdai Proyezd. The modern full-cycle film factory Moskino on Ryazansky Prospekt has also joined the cinema cluster. In addition, a super-modern complex, the Moskino movie park in the Troitsk and Novomoskovsky Administrative Okrug has been created. Its construction is ongoing, now the movie park has 24 full-scale shooting areas, and by 2030 it will have 70. Here it will be possible to implement film crews’ concepts, however ambitious.

In addition, the Moskino cinema platform forms part of the cluster, offering a convenient service for professionals, who in a couple of clicks can rent a site for filming not only at the film studio, but also in the city, and get information about grants, rent costumes, props and much more. In the past year, the platform has been used 1.7 million times.

In the new season of the Summer in Moscow project, anyone can learn about films, the process of their creation and the history of cinema. Visitors are invited to the Moskino movie park, Gorky Film Studio and many cinema-related sites on the capital’s boulevards.

As part of the Movie Weekends project, Moskino movie park organizes exciting events for Moscow residents and visitors to the capital. These include dozens of master classes, staged shootings based on beloved Soviet and Russian films, creative evenings and lectures by film industry professionals, performances by musicians, and plays and film screenings in the Moskino cinema.

During the excursions to the oldest Gorky Film Studio visitors can see authentic movie cameras of the 20th century, more than 100 rare photos from the sets, shots from their favorite films, and unique costumes and props.

IT and video games

More than 33,000 organizations are involved in the capital’s IT and video game industry. Their total annual revenue last year exceeded 3.9 trillion rubles.

“The industry is booming. And as is usually the case in such periods, the main problem currently is a huge shortage of staff. In an earlier post I reported that Moscow colleges offer training in new specializations, including computer game development and augmented and virtual reality. In parallel, we provide support to professionals. The Creative Industries Agency in 2024 realized 125 projects, including the Video Games Factory accelerator for independent games developers,” wrote Sergei Sobyanin.

Video Game Factory provides full support for developers, from the concept to finding investors. The accelerator also holds educational lectures and webinars, Q&A sessions, and works with mentors. Now 60 pilot versions of games in different genres have been created. Among them are a detective story based on Mikhail Bulgakov’s works, an adventure quest based on Alexander Pushkin’s fairy tales and a puzzle game set in the interiors of a spaceship.

Moscow game developers have long needed their own space, so in 2025, Russia’s first video game and animation cluster will open in the Skolkovo Innovation Center. Its residents will be leading Russian games development companies and animation studios. By bringing them together under one roof, they will be able to create video games of any type and complexity. The cluster will bring together all stages of content production and promotion—from training of specialists to support in promotion in foreign markets.

Residents will be able to use the offices, meeting rooms, server rooms, a motion capture studio, recording spaces, a lecture hall, conference room, exhibition area and more.

Publishing

About 12,000 organizations, or 10.6 percent of all companies in the creative industries, are engaged in publishing activities in Moscow. Their total revenue last year amounted to about 349.1 billion rubles.

This industry is also provided with support from the city. The Creative Industries Agency is implementing the Publishing Seasons project: Moscow publishers and illustrators will be able to present their products free of charge at Non/fiction, the largest International Fair of intellectual literature

Last year the Moscow International Publishing Week was held in the capital for the first time. Over 45 publishers from 13 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, China and Serbia, participated over a period of four days. During this time more than publishing professionals took part in over 200 meetings and 34 export contracts for the publication of books with a total circulation of 55,000 copies were concluded.

Since 2023, under the auspices of the Creative Industries Agency of Moscow, a business mission of Moscow publishing houses to the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair has been organized each year.

And now, as part of the Summer in Moscow project, members of the public can buy books in pavilions on Moscow’s boulevards.