By Thierry Thodinor
The air is pure, far from Moscow and the sullen looks of those who are locked in an existential struggle with winter for months ahead.
Sitting in the back of a black saloon car, we drive through the high birches of Vladimir oblast towards the utopia that no one asked for but to which everyone seems to have succumbed.
Dobrograd. A city like no other, born of the imagination of a certain Vladimir Sedov, billionaire, quilter, visionary, madman.
Dobrograd pilot city.
Dobrograd private city.
Dobrograd dreams of modern autarky.
Everything is measured and designed to make it a place where innovation meets traditional values. Dobrograd. ‘Dobro’, as in “kindness” and “benevolence”.
A dream packaged with care, like a comfortable mattress
Dobrograd is the antithesis of the concrete and pollution of the Soviet era. Smiles and renewable energy are the order of the day.
Everything is controlled here, from agricultural production to houses with their three distinct options: town house, detached house or flat. Three choices, but all bathed in the same sauce, with colour codes imposed for every square metre of façade. Not too bright, not too bold. A palette of muted tones.
You can spend your whole life here without having to leave the city limits. But comfort and security come at a price: 140,000 roubles per square metre, folks.
Government whispers to the West
And the Russian federal government is not mistaken. They see Dobrograd as a showcase for the future and a means of attracting talent, including from the West. Admittedly, foreigners currently represent only 5% of the population, but every effort is being made to increase this figure. Promoting ‘traditional and family values’ is at the heart of the Dobrograd project.
A city on a human scale, designed with the family in mind. Bind it with money and innovation.
Mix it all together by pressing the purée button.
The result is a living environment where you no longer have to choose between modernity and tradition, because the two coexist harmoniously. It’s the embodiment of the European dream: modern and back to basics, Prometheus and Gemütlichkeit.
Here, uniformity creates a sense of community, a common thread linking each resident to the next.
An overly tidy utopia?
The residents? For the moment, the streets are deserted and the houses are new. Dobrograd obviously hasn’t had time to grow organically over the centuries, but it has the scent of nostalgia: you expect an American family from the 1950s to pop out of a show house for a smiling picnic on one of these lawns so immaculate that they seem artificial and lifeless. It’s strangely perfect.
Everything sparkles with cleanliness and none of the buildings are remotely reminiscent of the grey suburbs of most Russian cities. Green spaces and water features characterise the layout.
Nothing here smells of cheap vodka. And perhaps that’s the problem: the urban planning seems to have come straight out of a version of SimCity.
Will this city ever attract an audience other than MacBook Pro worshippers and eco-friendly T-shirts?
An authentic city is like a dish of tripe: it needs to smell a little (not too much) of blood and shit.
Time will tell whether we’re dealing with a real city – one that admits to a certain level of stress, confusion and even chaos – or a gilded cage for the privileged, sheltered from the tumult of the world.
And above all: will the rest of the country be willing and able to keep up with this eco-friendly paradise of spas and wellness coaches?
Or will Dobrograd remain a timeless bubble, an aseptic billionaire’s dream?
October 18, 2024