Sergei Sobyanin names key projects in the development of the creative industries
Design is one of the fastest growing and most in-demand creative industries in various fields. A variety of support programs are available to companies in this industry.
“In total, about 2,800 organizations and entrepreneurs in the art industry work in the city, and the growth of annual revenue of this sector over the past five years was more than 60 percent,” Sergei Sobyanin wrote in his channel in the MAX messenger.
Source: Moscow Mayor’s channel in the MAX messenger
In 2024, the revenue of companies in this area amounted to 5.85 billion rubles.
Among the city’s major projects is the Design Factory competition, which has been held since 2022 in cooperation with the Union of Designers of Russia. It attracts talented design professionals, who create innovative solutions in various industries, including mechanical engineering, electronics, furniture manufacturing, educational robotics, tourism and the arts. In 2024, more than 500 designers from 62 regions of Russia took part in the competition. Customers and partners of the exhibition include Firma Izoterm JSC, Gusevsky Crystal Plant LLC, NPO Health of the Nation LLC, and Video Game Industry Development ANO.
In 2023, the Design Workshop project was launched in order to develop concepts for souvenir products. Since its opening, about 500 designers and 35 partners-customers have taken part in the project, including the Tretyakov Gallery, Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve, TsNIImash JSC (the main scientific institute of the Roscosmos State Corporation), the Gzhel Porcelain Factory, the Total Diktant project, the Zotov Center cultural space, the Moscow Tourism Committee and VDNKh. For representatives of the design industry it is an opportunity to get their first orders and establish cooperation with large companies. There is a real demand for development programs and assistance in finding customers in the industry. The number of companies in the design industry has grown by 91 percent over the past five years, reaching nearly six thousand by the end of last year. Their combined revenue last year amounted to 14.8 billion rubles.
Publishing
In 2024, the Moscow International Publishing Week was held for the first time. The participants included more than 45 publishers from 13 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, China and Serbia. More than 200 meetings with representatives of the book market were held, and 34 export contracts for the publication of books with a total circulation of 55,000 copies were concluded. In September this year, the event was held for the second time and brought together publishers from Russia and 17 foreign countries. Over 400 business negotiations on future cooperation and exports of printed products from Moscow were held over three days.
In 2024, under the auspices of the Creative Industries Agency, a business mission of 12 Moscow publishing houses traveled to China to participate in the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair. At the end of last year, they concluded more than 50 international contracts for the publication of children’s books by modern Russian authors in 10 countries.
In 2023, the cross-industry project Comics Immersion was launched. Its goal is to popularize applied professions in the creative industries and promote emerging artists working in the comic book genre. Young authors created 14 mini-stories, using techniques from professions in the film, publishing and fashion industries. Two thousand copies of the comic book collection were printed. The books are being sold in the Chitay-Gorod chain of bookshops.
The total turnover of the capital’s publishing houses last year exceeded 349 billion rubles. Today there are about 12,000 organizations working in this sphere.
Art industry
To support beginners in the art industry, the Creatus Online training course has been created to familiarize students with the basics of copyright and other intellectual property rights. More than 100 people took the course in 2024.
In 2025, Moscow Workshops, a creative center for artists and young people, was created. It has 35 fully equipped art studios (painting and pottery workshops), a lecture hall and an exhibition hall. Exhibitions and the lecture hall are open for visits by the public, and the residents of Moscow Workshops — experienced and aspiring Moscow artists — can use the center’s easel, potter’s wheels, drying areas and studio spaces and other infrastructure necessary for creating works of art, all free of charge. During the first season of the project, the artists created over 220 works of art that will be sold at fairs and exhibitions in the capital and online platforms.
The Art Factory project, aimed at rethinking the urban environment and public spaces through contemporary art, has been underway since 2023. Developers, owners of hotels and shopping centers and other organizations submit their requests for the development of unique art solutions (art installations, murals and so on), and artists, designers and architects offer their designs, which can then be used as a basis for the finished artworks. In the two years since the project began, 28 organizations have become partners and the participants have created 47 original art solutions.