Creative clusters in the historic centre of Saint-Petersburg 

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... possible due to the joint action of CIs (magazines, Internet publications, radio, etc.); – – Protecting cultural heritage institutions in the situation of tough competition as well as bringing them to the most profitable culture markets. In particular, the above goals can be achieved by organizing festivals, entertainment programs with the elements of traditional culture as well as arranging scientific events, weddings and birthday parties on the territory of museums, reserve museums, park areas. For example, some St. Petersburg museums offer a service of arranging children’s birthday parties which include a theatrical excursion, creative master classes, a photo session and a tea party at the museum’s cafe. This contributes to popularizing cultural activities and raises public interest in art making us more enthusiastic about culture and art, kindles the sense of patriotism. However, similar services are delivered by celebration agencies, i.e. by representatives of CI. In the meantime the authors have classified the already existing and potential cultural clusters in St. Petersburg into the following groups: – – cultural heritage clusters, – – ethnocultural clusters, – – mass-culture clusters, – – creative clusters, – – art-incubators (Gordin, Matetskaya 2010) (Table 1). From architectural-historic point of view St. Petersburg divides into 4 zones: 1) historic centre built mostly in the 18–19 th centuries; 2) industrial areas established in the 19 th and in the beginning of the 20 th century; 3) residential areas formed in the middle of the 20 th and in the beginning of the 21th century; 4) suburban open air museums (Peterhof, Pushkin, Pavlovsk, Oranienbaum). The map shows that most cultural heritage and creative clusters are located in the 1st zone (Fig. 1). Mass-culture clusters are being formed in the 2nd zone and mostly where passenger flows intersect. Art-incubators are gradually appearing on the premises of art universities in the 1st zone. However, it should be admitted that only the 3rd zone can boast of potentially vacant areas (which naturally require invest- ments into renovation of buildings and the area itself). It seems viable to launch creative clusters, art incubators and probably cultural heritage clusters in exactly these areas. The ap- proach stems from well-reputed international experience of transforming former industrial areas into different kinds of creative zones, lofts and art incubators 2 . Creative institutions in St. Petersburg have recently become active in developing former industrial areas. However, the process is rather slow as it requires targeted support from the city authorities (<- projectetagi.ru/>; <. com/>). Recultivating former industrial areas into creative activity zones is beneficial from two points of view. First, the process provides creative institutions with fairly cheap premises (which is very important considering high pri- ces on commercial property in other areas in St. Petersburg). At the same time the process lays the foundation for preserving unique objects of industrial architecture of the 18–19 th centuries and very few industrial buildings of socialist constructivism of the1920–30s. This can be illustrated by the first and only one museum quarter in St. Petersburg – the project “Museum Quarter” (<. museum-city.ru/>). This project is interesting because the integration of the four museums, located on a common territory in the area of pedestrian accessibility, was initiated by mu- seums themselves. The concept of the ...