CREATIVE & SUSTAINABLE

How To Create A Creative Cluster In A National Park

The idea of creative clusters isn’t new – since the Middle Ages towns and cities have had an Arts & Crafts Guild quarters. The Uzupis Republic started in 1996 in Vilnius. There are countless art spaces in every corner of the world. But what if you could imagine your own territory of inspiration in the middle of a resort area covered by ancient wood?

Then you probably should join the Eurasian Creative Guild (London) team (ECG). Since 2021 ECG has had a beautiful and cosy creative residency in the Burabay National Park (North Kazakhstan) in Shchuchinsk (the city of Pike). The Burabay National Park is almost 130,000 hectares of forests, rocks, hills, rivers and lakes in the middle of the steppe. It looks like a miracle twin brother of the Lake District in the UK. So, what can be the perfect place for the creative people tired of noisy cities, industrial quarters and other artefacts of civilization if not the National Park.

The Big Idea is the creation of a conditionally autonomous territory, “The Free City of Pikeville” inspired by the Uzupis Republic. And it already has a precedent - Shchuhcinsk had at least two free economic zones at the Rixos Hotel and the Golf Club on the shore of the Shchuchie lake (Pike lake). They belong to the territory of the city but actually don’t follow the usual government rules. But what should such a place be like?

First, it should be some sort of territory with three main infrastructural groups. The creative workshops, studies and factories to produce the creative product and provide the venues and workplaces to creative people, the real estate to provide them the place to live and rest, and