The leader in terms of the number of publications in the last two weeks was the news about the abolition of Rosokhrankultura: the corresponding presidential decree completed the campaign, begun in the summer of 2010, to curtail the activities of this federal structure. The formal reason, as Gazeta.ru writes, was the claims of the Accounts Chamber about poor quality records of monuments and improper distribution of licenses for restoration activities. However, according to the publication, the liquidation of Rosokhrankultura was being prepared for a long time: if initially the powers of this department were very broad, then in the last 2-3 years its "opportunities" have significantly decreased. At first, some of the functions were transferred to the territorial bodies of the department and the bodies for the protection of cultural heritage in the regions (like the Moscow Heritage Committee), and then the reduction of the list of "historical settlements" significantly limited the department's sphere of influence.
It is still unclear in what form the abolished Rosokhrankultura will become part of the Ministry of Culture and whether it will be more significant from this, as the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Alexander Avdeev assures the press. So far, one thing is clear to the Kommersant newspaper: the liquidation will result in "the disappearance of independent control over the use of funds and compliance with security obligations, for example, at the facilities of the Ministry of Culture, which is the largest state customer for expensive reconstruction and restoration of monuments." Another danger of the transfer of Rosokhrankultura under the wing of the ministry is associated with the imminent adoption of amendments to the law on heritage. So, if an amendment is adopted, transferring the right to remove from protection of monuments from the Government of the Russian Federation to the federal body of protection, the ministry will be able to enter cultural heritage objects into the register and exclude them from it on its own,”Rustam Rakhmatullin, coordinator of Arkhnadzor, comments on the situation. The newspaper "Culture" in a report from a press conference on the eve of the failed discussion of the bill in the State Duma on February 9, notes also other consequences of its new version, in particular, "the substitution of the concept of works of architecture and urban planning art, objects of archeology and other objects of cultural heritage the general leveling concept of "real estate objects".
Among others, the liquidation of Rosokhrankultura was commented on by its former head Alexander Kibovsky, who visited the editorial office of Rossiyskaya Gazeta for a “business breakfast”. Kibovsky said that he did not participate in the preparation of this reform and it is difficult for him to evaluate it, but "practice shows that the reorganization stops the pace of work for at least a year." The bulk of the interview touched upon the current sphere of activity of the official holding the post of head of the Moscow Heritage Committee. In particular, he told why the famous commune house of the People's Commissariat for Finance has come to such a deplorable state, what are they going to do with the rest of the apartment buildings-monuments and who will be responsible for the “ownerless monuments”.
And if Alexander Kibovsky is quite willing to communicate with the press, then the new mayor of the capital Sergei Sobyanin, until recently, avoided journalists. The two-hour interview on Echo of Moscow was the Mayor's first public appearance in front of a wide audience, in which he announced his position on key issues of urban planning. So, Sobyanin opposed the comprehensive unification of Moscow and the region, because, in his opinion, "all these revolutionary associations bear great political costs, it is easier to follow the path of integrating the activities of the executive authorities." The mayor also spoke in favor of the conservation of the historical center of the capital, the speedy completion of the construction of an underground parking under Triumfalnaya Square and the rejection of the implementation of the Fourth Transport Ring project as too expensive.
On the eve of the broadcast on Echo, a review article appeared in Vedomosti, summarizing the latest statements of the Moscow authorities regarding the General Plan adopted last year. The cautious statements about the possible correction of this document were replaced by much more definite ones: "There is a General Plan that does not suit us, and the rules of land use and development, which do not exist." The newspaper reminds that the Control and Accounts Chamber of Moscow also made a recommendation for a substantial revision of the General Plan.
In St. Petersburg, the media at that time discussed the intermediate results of the reconstruction of the Summer Garden, which the customer - the Russian Museum - presented at a recent press conference. So, to date, 55 percent of the work has already been completed. According to Fontanka.ru, the museum representatives call the main achievement of this expensive project archaeological work, thanks to which the appearance of the garden and its layout have been completely recreated. Visitors will be able to see the results of a three-year renovation of St. Petersburg's oldest landmark in May 2012. Another thing is that the museum is unlikely to have enough funds for the subsequent operation of such an ensemble, notes the portal Baltinfo.
The fact that the St. Petersburg authorities do not have enough funds to maintain architectural monuments has been known for a long time. The city administration has been continuing to “denationalize” objects of history and architecture for several years, putting them up for auctions. So, in the near future several monuments of federal significance will be transferred to private hands - the Astoria hotel, Kochubei's House, two buildings belonging to the Maly Mikhailovsky Palace complex, Utkina dacha, the building of the 1st Mutual Credit Society. An analytical article on the Sensus Novus portal is devoted to the fate of such buildings. As a rule, privatized monuments become victims of total reconstructions - the article lists only a few examples, such as the Dacha of Evgenia Gauswald or the Parisiana cinema on Nevsky, 80. The trouble is that “the criterion for selecting buyers and users is often not very clear. And the legal system is not yet fully debugged, the conditions are not clearly spelled out …”, - the architect Nikita Yavein comments on the situation.
An even more neglected state of monuments is observed in the Leningrad region, most of which are generally ruined. According to the Delovoy Peterburg portal, the other day the administration of the Luga district of the Leningrad region, unable to save the magnificent ensembles of the former noble estates, came up with a proposal to transfer some of them to private investors. The list includes the estates of the Bakunins, Beloselsky-Belozersky, Polovtsevs.
By the way, in the Moscow region it was decided to save the dying heritage by the same means: as Vesti Moskva reported, it was decided to turn the Medvedkovo and Vinogradovo estates into hotel complexes. However, other scenarios for the development of events are not uncommon in Russian practice - monuments are simply dismantled for building material. So, the other day Tver activists reported on a partial dismantling of the building of the former Assumption Church in the village of Spirovo - the construction of the largest Russian architect A. S. Kaminsky in 1878. And the defenders of the famous wooden ensemble Kizhi wrote a letter to the president, in which they called to abandon the "modern" methods of restoration of the Church of the Transfiguration, leading to the loss of authenticity, in favor of the long-approved "complete disassembly" and subsequent assembly with the replacement of rotten logs. The expert in the field of restoration of monuments of wooden architecture Alexander Popov accused the current restorers of the church of unprofessionalism and low quality of preliminary research in an interview with IA Regnum.
Another news in mid-February was the unexpected relocation of the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, as reported by Gazeta.ru. The Federation of Jewish Communities, which owns the restored building of the former Bakhmetyevsky garage by architect Konstantin Melnikov, plans to open the Russian Jewish Museum of Tolerance here. Where Garage will move is kept secret, but it is known for sure that it will remain in Moscow. Perhaps, the space of the former Badaevsky brewery will become a new haven for contemporary art.
At the end of the review, let us mention Grigory Revzin's review of the exhibition “Will Price. Parallels”, which opens next week at the Museum of Architecture. Critics are extremely impressed by the fact that the exposition "is not at all reduced to the material that is shown on it." And there will be shown “sixty pairs of exquisite visual rhymes between ancient and modern wooden architecture”, which curator Nikolai Malinin found between buildings from the collection of the architect and photographer Will Price and the works of contemporary architects, including Russian ones.
