authorities invested a great deal of money into the development of the city's road and rail infrastructure, much of the funds for which were granted by the federal government in Moscow.Included in these preparations was the opening of a new bridge (in 2006) over the Volga; this is now known as the Jubilee Bridge. Also in August 2008 the newly built Yaroslavl Zoo was opened; this was then expanded further in 2010.
In 2009, Yaroslavl became a meeting place for global policy debates within the International Conference 'The Modern State and Global Security'. AKA Yaroslavl Global Policy Forum. The conference in Yaroslavl gathered the most authoritative representatives of political science, business community as well as the representatives of the governments of a number of different states. Dmitry Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation, Jos� Luis Zapatero, Prime Minister of Spain, Francois Fillon, Prime Minister of France were all participants at the Conference.
In 2010, Russian officials gathered together international authorities in Yaroslavl to discuss the challenges facing the modern state at the Global Policy Forum for 'The Modern State: Standards of Democracy and Criteria of Efficiency'. In 2011 Yaroslavl will bring together participants from all over the world to discuss the 2011 agenda: 'The modern state in the age of social diversity'.
On September 7, 2011, most of the members of the city's KHL (ice hockey) team, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, perished in an air crash on takeoff from Yaroslavl's Tunoshna Airport
