Last Saturday, without any fanfare, noise and "PR" in Milyutinsky Lane, a working meeting of the Arkhnadzor public movement took place. Its goal is to unite public efforts to protect historical and cultural monuments. In fact, first of all, it is a combination of projects created and proven over the past decade. Public projects related to the protection of Moscow antiquity and the memory of it.
Now the new movement includes "Moscow, which does not exist", "MAPS", "Against scrap", "Arhnadzor". One of the ideologists of the united "Arhnadkhor" was Rustam Rakhmatullin, a local historian and journalist, leading the column "Ostrozhno, Moscow!" in Izvestia (the most accurate open chronicle of incidents and events) and the author of the book "Two Moscow", which received the "Big Book" prize in the summer.
The movement was supported by Sovarkh and Archi.ru. Anyone can join, both people and organizations.
Strictly speaking, it was high time to unite. Each of the named projects has its own specifics. “Against Scrap” arose about 10 years ago from an exhibition of photographs of losses and their catalog, MAPS is a union of Russians and foreign journalists in an attempt to protect the heritage and urban environment of Moscow. "Moscow, which does not exist" five years ago was engaged in something similar to flash mobs (for example, they organized an action with candles at Voentorg, the defense of Polivanov's house), and now publishes books and monitors monuments. Arkhnadzor is Alexander Mozhaev's thin and high-quality text-based online magazine that combines professional reporting with historical, cultural and architectural journalism. Actually, he gave the name to the new movement - quite accurately corresponding to its tasks. The site https://www.archnadzor.ru/ will soon be changed and will become its information center (however, I would like it not to harm the current feed of articles). So, everyone is sincerely doing one thing, but each is a little different, depending on the inclinations. Although in the eyes of less dedicated observers, the protection of monuments has long been perceived as a movement (and not a conglomerate of communities), strictly speaking, it even has a name, almost a popular name - “guardians”.
The unity in diversity that the participants strive for is good. What caused the unification? I will make a reservation right away that the topic of the protection of monuments and everything connected with it is gigantic, articles have been written about it, seemingly invisibly (for example, from all the press devoted to architecture - as a rule, more than two thirds of these are articles about heritage and losses). It is impossible and unnecessary to describe all the vicissitudes of even the last few months. Instead, I will share a purely subjective feeling that has haunted me over the past year. For some reason, it seems to me that the initiative of the public in the field of protecting monuments seems to be trying to limit and put into strict limits (this is instead of welcoming the active civic position of Muscovites). For example, the last case - meetings of the Moscow Heritage Committee with representatives of the "guardians" gradually stopped, but quite recently an instruction was issued that complicated the procedure for filing an application for registering a monument - so much so that, in the opinion of many, now this task will only be up to specialists. As you know, there are few specialists. And non-specialists seem to be removed.
So the unification is more than ripe. Its tasks are clearly stated in the Arkhnadzor manifesto. One of them seems to be the most essential (as well as the most labor-intensive) - this is the public monitoring of monuments, identification and registration, as well as observation of what happens to the “registered” buildings. The institution of public inspectors is being formed - which now seems more than necessary and I want this undertaking to succeed. "Arhnadkhor" should become a center for collecting information, and at the same time - a way to streamline voluntary work on monitoring the state of monuments. The movement will have a coordinating council and five thematic sections.
As for specific cases - here I would like to note one feature. First, the unification took place without any press gestures. The initiators said - it is better to do something first, and then loudly declare yourself. This position - first deeds, then words - seems correct, although in our time of PR, perhaps it is not the most profitable. The movement's big founding convention is likely to take place in the spring. And secondly, there are already cases. Thus, the participants of the Arkhnadzor workshop signed four letters addressed to the authorities; each is associated with a specific monument: this is a viaduct that is being destroyed on Belorusskaya Square, Pozharsky's chambers on Bolshaya Lubyanka, Children's World and the Shakhovskaya-Glebova-Streshneva estate, reconstructed under the Helikon-Opera. Letters will be sent to addressees shortly. These are already concrete cases.
