Digital Ecosystem Takes Center Stage at Russian Creative Week
The festival and forum, which brought together dozens of leading experts, took place at Moscow's Gorky Park.
Creative industries have long outgrown their traditional association with fields such as fashion, painting, or sculpture. Today, they are defined first and foremost by digital products – software, video games, cloud services, neural networks, and many other technologies. Each of them begins with human creativity.
Digital Technologies in the Spotlight
Last weekend, the seventh Rossiyskaya Kreativnaya Nedelya (Russian Creative Week) festival and forum was held at the Mechta complex in Moscow's Gorky Park. This year's event focused on the evolving agenda of the creative economy, where intellectual potential, cultural ideas, technology, and creative industries are viewed as a major resource for national development.
"Anyone who stops to think about it probably has the feeling that we are already living in the future. We are surrounded by new technologies – everything that was once imagined in creative laboratories. Just look at our smartphones. They stopped being simple phones long ago and have become true information hubs. A single device like that would probably be enough to replace the giant computers featured in classic science fiction films such as The Andromeda Nebula. All of this was created by inventive people. And those creative breakthroughs are exactly what Russia needs today," said Ilya Gambashidze, founder of the Agency for Social Engineering.
The digital side of the creative industries is perhaps best illustrated by the growth of Russia's software market. During 2025 alone, the market expanded by 21% to more than 808 billion rubles (approximately $10.3 billion). By 2030, it is expected to reach 1.7 trillion rubles (approximately $21.7 billion), according to figures released by Apple Hills Digital and Yandex B2B Tech.
Creative Potential Becomes the Primary Asset
"The creative economy is becoming the main driver of higher productivity across different sectors. For decades, we lived in a resource-based era, and we were taught to manage businesses, territories, and regions through that lens. Today, the creative economy is growing three times faster than the resource economy. Around the world, investors are directing their capital toward creative products. As public strategists and visionaries, it was important for us to introduce new ways of understanding what the creative economy means for Russia today because this is an issue of fundamental importance," said Marina Mongush, President of the Creative Economy Autonomous Nonprofit Organization and Director of Russian Creative Week.
Growth Drivers Have Been Identified
Last year, the creative industries accounted for 4.2% of Russia's GDP. President Vladimir Putin has set a target of increasing that contribution to 6% by 2030. Today, digital products are emerging as the sector's principal engine of growth.
"Federal legislation identifies sixteen industries that are expected to contribute to achieving the president's target of raising the creative economy's share of GDP to 6%. But we can already see which sectors generate the strongest returns – everything connected with video games and software," said Darya Kislitsyna, Director of Regional Programs at the Expert Institute for Social Research.
More broadly, the development of a secure digital environment became one of the forum's central themes. Participants emphasized that creative products should be not only diverse but also as safe as possible. Elizaveta Belyakova, Chair of the Alliance for the Protection of Children on the Internet, noted that social media now exerts a greater influence on teenagers than either families or schools. Under those conditions, she argued, developing critical thinking through high-quality media content becomes especially important.
Creating Ideas of Our Own
Participants at Russian Creative Week also emphasized the importance of protecting the country's digital sovereignty.
"Creative people shape the ideas and narratives that define society. If we do not create those narratives ourselves, we inevitably become consumers of narratives created by someone else for their own purposes. We want the younger generation of Russians to grow up creating their own ideas rather than consuming those produced elsewhere. If the state creates the conditions that make this possible, everyone benefits because we can already see that Russia's talented creative products are competitive on the global market. Young people see this as a novel pathway for upward mobility, a new way to realize their talents, and, more broadly, to achieve personal fulfillment. In practice, that also helps reduce social anxiety. More importantly, it positions Russia not as a country promoting an alternative line of information messaging, but as an architect of a new, more connected global society built around ideas and values that resonate across many countries," said Sergey Novikov, Head of the Presidential Directorate for Public Projects of the Russian Federation.
Russian Creative Week once again reinforced its position as one of the country's leading industry events. It brought together creators and decision-makers to tackle the most pressing challenges facing the creative economy.
