The top three leaders kept their positions. St. Petersburg, still leading the Rating, has a well-developed event infrastructure and is actively enhancing and promoting its brand both in external and domestic markets, and has extensive experience in the hosting of major international events. Sverdlovsk Region and the Republic of Tatarstan, as regions having a high event potential, also kept their second and third positions in the Rating. While Tatarstan kept its third place as in 2020, it improved its score reducing the gap with Sverdlovsk Region. The improvement in its ranking is mainly driven by the indicators reflecting the expertise in convention hosting and attracting major international events to the region. Sverdlovsk Region kept its second place in the Rating due to a higher score for event industry development strategy, industry support, and its performance in the Russian Event Awards. In most other positions, Sverdlovsk Region and the Republic of Tatarstan are almost equal.Nizhny Novgorod Region significantly improved its overall indicators advancing from the 11th to ththe 4 place. In 2021, Nizhny Novgorod thcelebrated its 800 anniversary, which contributed to a significant improvement of the city's architecture, including the construction and launch of a new 3,200 sq.m exhibition pavilion, upgrades of existing pavilions, and area improvements. The rich anniversary event agenda formed a solid groundwork for the development of event tourism, which received high overall scores in the Rating.In this year's Rating, Krasnodar Region and Sochi are for the first time considered as a single region.Moscow's results, as the capital region with great resource capacities, are not considered in the overall ranking.26 TTW Europe