RUSSIA: Moscow's economic boom and new construction threatens the city's historical centre

Moscow's booming economy has endangered the historical centre as developers aggressively snap up properties and tear down historic buildings. In other cases, historic buildings are allegedly "restored'', which in local parlance means that sham copies are erected in place of the original building. One of the most recent buildings to be threatened by developers is the Imperial Cavalry Barracks in the Khamovniki district, a ten-minute car ride from the Kremlin. In 1995, President Boris Yeltsin signed an order listing the barracks, which were built in 1807-1809 by the leading Russian architect Matvei Kazakov, as a federally protected historical site. Last month, however, Russia's leading national daily Kommersant reported that at the end of 2006 a developer conspired to have the barracks secretly stripped of that status. Now, the developer has approval from Moscow City Hall to tear the building down. Aside from several newspaper articles, however, there has been no public outcry, no protests. Throughout the centre of Moscow, old buildings are being covered with netting or billboards, and disappearing soon after as developers tear down historic building with approval from City Hall. In their place appear luxury housing and office space, which can sell for between 20,000 and 50,000 U.S. dollars (USD) a square metre. "I am a native of Moscow, I was born in Moscow, I am an 8th generation Muscovite,'' said Muscovite, Andrei Sergeevich. `"I love my city and to be honest it s a pity to see how we lose the features of the past. There are many interesting architectural ideas, but sometimes we see just thoughtless destruction of the old.'' Preserving Russia's architectural heritage is one of the most urgent issues in the country, particularly since most are located in city centres where real estate values are skyrocketing. Many old buildings are crumbling because the State, the legal owner of all listed historical properties, cannot afford maintenance. Moscow has about 4,000 listed historical buildings. "It is not that simple. One thing is when the old buildings which fit in the city landscape are being reconstructed whether or not they have a historical value or not,'' said Andrei, a Muscovite. "But it is a totally different matter when old buildings are destroyed and replaced by the new ones which are not in harmony with the buildings around. Such things spoil the look of the city." According to the Moscow Architectural Preservation Society (MAPS), Moscow real estate developers show little regard for preservation laws, and have an insatiable appetite for city-centre sites. Over the past decade about 300 listed buildings in Moscow have been torn down to make way for properties that cater to the country's political and business elite. Local officials, whose job it is to protect sites, are often close to developers and corruption is rife. "In the last 15 years the historic centre of Moscow has seen colossal changes,'' said David Sarkisyan, director of the Moscow Architecture Museum. "Of course, the historic centre underwent huge changes under Stalin as well - I mean Stalin's plan for the reconstruction of Moscow. It was a gigantic plan which changed the city completely. And in general Moscow now is like a quilt consisting of different reconstruction plans - one part of it influenced by one idea, a second part - by another idea, etc. But the patch which is being added to the history of the city by Moscow's Mayor Luzhkov is too big, it is so big that it covers all other patches, it is not a quilt anymore, it is a domination of one idea." There is certainly no shortage of architectural preservationists and concerned citizens. The problem is that since President Vladimir Putin came to power and began clamping down on democratic freedoms, the public is increasingly fearful of challenging the political establishment and their corporate allies. Another one of the most recent incidents to outrage Sarkisyan is a project by President Putin's Property Fund to develop a 19th century marketplace on the Red Square. The building is federally-protected, but Sarkisyan said that valuable structures in the courtyard, which can't be seen from the street, have already been destroyed. The Kremlin won't give the media access to the site. Even architectural masterpieces of the Soviet period are not immune from the wrecking ball. On the other side of the Red Square the Moscow city government is rebuilding a copy of the Hotel Moscow. The original, built by Stalin's orders in the early 1930s and considered a masterpiece of that epoch, was torn down in 2004 ostensibly because it was dilapidated. Sarkisyan said these claims are false, and that the hotel was structurally sound. The great tragedy was that the hotel's interior was among the most exquisite made in Stalinist times, crafted by the era's finest artists, and that current builders do have neither the money nor talent to replicate them. Another source of concern to preservationists is one of Russia's most famous landmarks, the Bolshoi Theater. It is undergoing a major restoration that will cost between 500 and 700 million USD. The structure is currently hidden by a huge advertisement for travel to Turkey. While state officials have promised that the theatre's facade and interiors will remain unchanged, a lack of public accountability and discussion has made preservationists increasingly sceptical and they feat that the final results will be an poor copy of the original. With the Russian people stripped of a voice in the political arena and the country tightly ruled by the Kremlin and its corporate allies, preserving Russia's architectural legacy for future generations will be increasingly difficult.

ITN Source | March 16, 2007

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