Russian President Vladimir Putin was surprised at the collision that arose with places in kindergartens in St. Petersburg.
During a visit to the Obukhovsky plant on January 18, design engineer Irina Yashina from the Nevsky district turned to the head of state and asked if it was possible to extend payments for child care from one and a half to three years if there was no place in kindergarten. Her child, the woman noted, went to kindergarten only at 2.5 years old.
“Alexander Dmitrievich reports that in St. Petersburg there is 100% satisfaction for everyone who wants to send their children to preschool institutions. There are 64 such regions in the Russian Federation today … Alexander Dmitrievich, do you have one hundred percent in St. Petersburg? Putin asked.
Beglov replied that there were “almost no questions” regarding children from 2.5 years old. “If there is a deficit in some areas, then this year we will solve it,” he said.
Putin retorted that “according to official reports, you have one hundred percent,” but here we are talking regarding some kind of deficit: “You just told me that when building new quarters, they began to pay more attention to social infrastructure … Look, come back to this once more” .
Beglov’s answer was unequivocal: “Yes!”
In addition, Putin announced the need to eliminate queues for kindergartens in all regions of the country this year.
At the end of December last year, Beglov spoke regarding the record pace of commissioning of social facilities. “At the end of 2018, the shortage of schools in the city was approximately 100 objects. And we lacked 200 kindergartens. We have already closed half of this deficit – we have built 44 schools and 127 kindergartens. Over the next three years, we will introduce 62 schools and 106 kindergartens. We plan to completely close the entire deficit accumulated over a decade and a half by the beginning of 2025. From the very beginning, this direction was key for us: to remove the deficit and move on to planned work, we will finance it as a priority,” pointed out he.