Fighting Air Pollution in Russia: The Federal Project "Clean Air"

Air quality is a substantive public health, social and economic concern. Cities are being affected more seriously than ever by the industrialization and growing population, development of energy and transportation industries. In this regard, each state strives to develop a competent public administration policy in the field of environmental protection. A new initiative – the National Project “Ecology” including the Federal project “Clean Air” – is being introduced in Russia beginning in 2019. However, there is a gap in the literature due to the recent launch of the project. In this way, the goal of this study was to analyze the implementation of the Federal Clean Air programme on the territory of the selected cities – Nizhny Tagil and Chelyabinsk. In order to examine the implementation of the project, questionnaires, content analysis and interviews were used. Based on these data, cities were compared to establish similarities and differences in air quality and the health of residents. There are problems with the implementation of the Project in the two cities, but there is one common idea for all: only through joint efforts on the part of society, the state and business can visible results be achieved. A study such as this one will allow public administrators, local enterprises, responsible for the project implementation communicate more effectively to deal with future problems – including air pollution.