Penza, 26 September 2014. PenzaNews. Deputy chairman of the regional government Valery Bespalov compared Penza with Manchester during his address to the participants of the IV Humanitarian Forum “The Search of Province: Marathon of ideas,” which opened on Friday, September 26.

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In his speech, he said that some time ago Penza took some 80th place in the list of the largest cities in Europe alongside a British city.

“Now Penza is on 92d place in Europe in terms of population, and Manchester is not even in the top hundred. But this does not prevent it from having famous football clubs “Manchester United” and “Manchester City.” Also there live our Nobel Prize winners [Andrei] Geym and [Konstantin] Novoselov. I dream of the day when Geym and Novoselov move to Penza, and Penza football and hockey clubs will be no less popular than at least other Russian ones, and certainly will not play worse than teams from neighboring Mordovia and other nearby regions of our vast country,” the deputy chairman of the regional government said.

Valery Bespalov also expressed hope that the humanitarian forum will inspire participants and provide an incentive for further development of Penza.