Innovations will save Russians from fires.
In large Russian cities, due to rising land prices and an increasing number of migrants, the construction of multi-story buildings has recently been increasingly active.
Despite all the advantages of such buildings, their economic component in the minds of urban planners often overshadows safety issues.
Large cities were built at a time when no one imagined that the population would have so many private cars.
Multi-kilometer traffic jams, so common in Moscow or St. Petersburg, arise primarily because the capacity of highways has long been exhausted.
But it is not only traffic jams that can cause a fire engine to be late to the scene of a fire. Many courtyards have turned into spontaneous parking lots, where it is problematic to drive even a regular car, not to mention large special vehicles.
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, in his recent speech at the conference of the International Assembly of Capitals and Large Cities, emphasized the importance of developing new innovative security systems in Moscow.
According to Luzhkov, he recently proposed to create a group at the Council for Informatization that would be engaged in the creation of information systems and their implementation in Russian cities.
The mayor noted that in order to ensure the safety of Muscovites' homes, a network of video cameras is being developed in the city, but in this area, according to the mayor, the capital is suffering from failures — in particular, there is practically no centralization in the work of special equipment.
Let us recall that back in 2007 Luzhkov stated that «first and foremost, it is necessary to ensure the safety of people and housing, including from man-made disasters».
However, two years later it became clear that there is not enough money to install video cameras in every Moscow home.
According to rough estimates, this should cost the authorities 670 million rubles, which is an astronomical amount of money in a crisis period. In addition, video surveillance alone is not enough to prevent explosions and fires.
In this regard, the developments of private construction companies are becoming increasingly widespread — first of all, evacuation systems for high-rise buildings and window blockers, unique technologies that until now have been used exclusively in the Russian capital.
A REGIONS correspondent asked Alexander Gorodetsky, executive director of the Construction Center «Stolitsa», one of the leading firms involved in the implementation of these initiatives, to comment on the problems that companies face in ensuring the safety of residential buildings.
Where do you think the main threat to the safety of residents of large cities comes from?
The main threat to residents of large cities comes from… residents of large cities.
Arson, drunkenness, violation of the rules for the operation of residential premises, poorly laid wiring, etc. are the most common sources of fires and man-made disasters.
All this is complicated by the lack of habit among people of equipping their homes with personal rescue equipment, because often, due to the specific nature of fires, it takes a considerable amount of time to save a person, which is not always available. This is evidenced by the sad statistics of human casualties.
What is the current situation on the security services market?
How popular is this area of activity in Russia?
The situation with people's safety in Russia is depressing.
There are only a few commercial companies that would promote new products in the field of saving people, because research in this area costs a lot of money, and sales of products are not guaranteed.
In Russia, until the rooster pecks the roast, the man will not cross himself.
Nevertheless, we manage to conduct research in this area quite successfully and produce products that are superior in their characteristics to their analogues.
Please tell us what developments in the field of security are carried out by your company?
Among the most popular developments in the capital, we can note the devices «Blocker» and «Chance». «Chance» is a device that will allow any number of people to escape from any height.
It is quite easy to operate, even a completely physically untrained person can use it.
It is worth noting that most of the rescue equipment on the market is designed for people with at least mountaineering skills. Also, we recently released the «Blocker» device to the market, which solves the problem of «blind» gratings.
In addition, we are working on a concept of safety zones in buildings, which will help reduce fire mortality by 90%.
This concept will be available for review this summer.
What is new about your proposals in this area?
We are exclusively engaged in innovations, each of our products is unique, and many have no analogues.
For example, take the blocker. Not long before its creation, we attended a board meeting with the participation of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and representatives of the departments of education and health.
Security issues were discussed, including the acute issue of leaving blind bars on buildings, because people inside are trapped in the event of a fire.
At the same time, they cannot be cut off, because the number of thefts immediately increases by an order of magnitude.
A month later, we had already made the first blocker, and a month later, we equipped the first schools in the Northern District of the capital with it. Similar stories can be told about a number of our developments.
Why did you decide to engage in this unpopular, in your words, area of commerce?
Because it is the most interesting and productive. We have many ideas that require implementation, and by implementing them, we get a lot of positive emotions.
It may not be as profitable as speculating on the stock exchange or manufacturing, but there is a drive in our work and we like to create what no one else can create.
Recently, the top officials of the state have been talking a lot about supporting innovative businesses and innovators.
If we had government support or support from large businesses, we could release dozens of popular technical solutions annually.
At the moment, we sponsor our research independently, relying on the profits from our previous developments.
Despite the crisis, we are expanding and preparing to open several more innovative areas this year.
Among them is a new building material that will significantly surpass chipboard and plywood, as well as a line of improvements for civilian and military weapons and a pistol of a new design.
How do you hope to introduce innovations into the capital's economic activity?
Even though innovation is recognized everywhere, it is sometimes extremely difficult to implement it.
This is largely due to the fact that companies that work with government orders do not have the opportunity to bypass the tender system, even if they are the only copyright holders.
That is, when a tender was announced specifically for blockers, left-wing companies still came, which can participate on absolutely legal grounds.
The saving grace is that our products are unique.
And therefore in demand.
In addition, we produce exclusively in Russia and from domestic components.
All this, in theory, should give us an advantage over other companies, but this is not the case.
I hope that this situation will change in the near future and it will be easier for us to do what we love.