The work is devoted to a review of the results of the 148th meeting of the Dispute Club “Economic Policy Knots” of the Association of Russian Economic Think Tanks (hereinafter referred to as ARETT) on the topic "How the economy of Russian cities going through the crisis". The purpose of the event was to discuss a number of issues related to the impact of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy of  Russian cities. The debaters were  Leonid Eduardovich Limonov, Director-Coordinator  of  Research  Programs  of  ICSER  “Leontief  Center”,  and  Irina  Dmitrievna Turgel, Deputy Director for Science and Innovation of the School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University. The review presents the key ideas of the disputants, and also summarizes the main results of their answers to questions.