Art cafes and transforming spaces: renovation of the Vertolyot Youth Center is underway in Kazan

The Vertolyot (Helicopter) Youth Center on Malo-Moskovskaya Street in the Kirovsky district of Kazan is undergoing renovation. After the renovation, more than 2 thousand teenagers per month will be able to attend activities at the institution, and about one thousand children per month will be able to attend various classes. The building will accommodate sports and concert halls, a hall for choreography classes, a transformable lobby, a video studio and other premises. The progress of the repair work was inspected by the Mayor of Kazan Ilsur Metshin. The Mayor instructed to finalize the project taking into account the interior design of other youth institutions.

The Vertolyot Youth Center has an area of 3,200 square meters, work has already been done to repair the foundation, installation of waterproofing and dismantling outbuildings. Installation of partitions, repair of the facade and roof, as well as ventilation and commissioning will be carried out shortly.

According to the associate professor of the Institute of Design and Spatial Arts of Kazan Federal University Stepan Novikov, the color solutions of the interiors are borrowed from the color book of the 30-40s. The history of the building began in in 1948, it was the post–war period. Previously, it belonged to the Kazan Helicopter Plant, and it was transferred to municipality in 2019.

Yekaterina Sogrina, Director of the MBU Podrostok, said that a program has been launched to train administrators for youth policy institutions. “It is the first impression that is always formed at the entrance to the institution. We want the entrance group to be hospitable, so visitors would like to stay and find something interesting,”- she noted.

A multipurpose lobby will be located on the second floor, which can be transformed for various events, as well as a concert hall, photo and video studio. A large sports hall will open on the third floor. “We believe that in the near future we will be able to host events at the municipal, republican and federal levels,”- Yekaterina Sogrina said. It should be noted that according to the results of the Rosmolodezh competition MBU Podrostok won a grant to improve the capabilities in the amount of 42.2 million rubles and 17 million rubles for the activities of the center.

According to Yekaterina Sogrina, famous musical traditions and names were born in Podrostok, including the Rock Wave city festival, as well as the collaboration of the band Dabro and Jast brass, as well as NeZaMi, known not only in Kazan, but also throughout Russia. Therefore, after the renovation, Vertolyot will be able to become a point of attraction not only for the youth of the Kirovsky and Moskovsky districts, but also for the whole city.

For reference, Podrostok includes 64 teen clubs, which are attended by 18 thousand people. Fifteen new facilities have been opened within the Youth Center over the past five years. Youth clubs first appeared in Derbyshki, Yudino, Salavat Kupere, Zalesny, Admiralteyskaya and Porokhovaya Sloboda, and the total area of the centers increased from 16.5 to 24.6 thousand square meters.

In recent years, new classes have been developed in youth clubs: video blogging, rock climbing, sound engineering, pottery, robotics, leather, carpentry, film studios.