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sustainable local development without mining (Chernovski 2012). Moreover, Kolokol’tsev argued
that for the overall wellbeing of the community, investment should be directed to LGOK instead of
tourism. Although positive, the development of tourism would be of secondary importance in
comparison with any future success in the development of the main industrial field on which Revda
was created (Sivonen 2012).
The Russian Lapland (Russkaya Laplandiya) plan turned out to be unsuccessful in 2012. In June 2012
the town’s representatives still officially believed that the plan would be implemented (Mamedov,
personal communication, June 18, 2012) despite the fact that the private investment needed for any
plan to succeed had disappeared at the end of 2011 (Mihailov 2011; Chernovski 2012). However, the
failure of the programme was a typical example of plans in Russian single-industry towns. It was one
of those failed projects that led to the closure of the programme designed to support single-industry
towns produced by the Russian government (Chernovski 2012). Federal subsidies in the amount of
150 million rubles were assigned to the Russian Lapland project, while a private investor had been
expected to invest 450 million roubles (Chernovski 2012; Varenik 2012). However, Revda could not
use this federal subsidy for its tourism project because it was conditional on the private investor
investing simultaneously in the proposed project (Mihailov 2011; Chernovski 2012). The case of
Revda was not the only megalomaniac or unrealistic idea in the programme of Russian singleindustry towns. Fictional and unrealistic investment projects were also drawn up in other singleindustry towns. Unsuccessful projects were common in towns which calc