To paraphrase the classic, we can say that the restoration of the Bolshoi Theater, the need for which a variety of experts have been talking about for so long, has finally come to an end. On the evening of October 28, a gala concert will take place on the historical stage of the State Academic Bolshoi Theater, timed to coincide with the end of the restoration work. And while theater critics are preparing to write reviews of this production, their fellow writers have already erupted in a flurry of materials dedicated to the restoration. Publications about this event appeared in the newspapers Trud, Nevskoe Vremya, Moskovskie Novosti, Rossiyskaya Gazeta and Nezavisimaya Gazeta and many other publications.
Round sums and a list of new products in the technical base wander from one material to another, along with the opinions of the Bolshoi Theater Director General Anatoly Iksanov and the artistic directors of this collective, about what advantages the theater began to possess after reconstruction. “I have been singing for the 46th season at the Bolshoi Theater, and naturally, I know well what the theater was like before the restoration. Now opera soloists have almost three times more art and rehearsal rooms with grand pianos. But the main thing is that the very special aura of the Bolshoi Theater, on the stage of which all outstanding Russian singers have performed, has not disappeared anywhere, only it has become brighter and brighter,”said the head of the opera company Makvala Kasrashvili in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
However, not all employees of the country's main theater are about the reconstruction with the same degree of optimism. So one of the leading soloists of the ballet troupe, People's Artist Nikolai Tsiskaridze expresses a completely opposite point of view, stating that all changes in the Bolshoi are only for the worse. “At one time I could not but rejoice at the forthcoming reconstruction of the theater. I understood that reconstruction was necessary, that the work would be difficult. But the fact that the work will turn out to be so deplorable … The problem is that the theater cannot be recognized. I'm not making this up. Every spectator will be able to see the spectator part of the theater. He will see, for example, that instead of the old stucco molding - plastic or papier-mâché, pasted on PVA glue and painted with gold paint. If the viewer wants to vandalize, he can break off this plastic and take it with him in his pocket. Not a single bronze candelabra remained in the theater. Everyone will be able to touch the new candelabrum with their finger and understand that instead of bronze there is a piece of iron, tinted with gold paint. All the handles on the doors of the theater were also bronze, and now these handles are gone. Where did everything go? " - said the famous dancer in an interview with the newspaper "Tomorrow".
However, it is possible that such harsh criticism was caused not so much by the quality of construction work as by internal disagreements in the creative team. “Despite the fact that in the last six months considerable efforts have been thrown into this, despite the abundance of interviews given by Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Anatoly Iksanov opens the historical stage, in which the reconstruction began in July 2005 and ends today with a gala concert. However, his position will remain attractive both tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. But he has the honor to open it, Nezavisimaya Gazeta casually mentions in its material dedicated to this event.
Time will judge which cultural figure is right. The opinion of Nikolai Tsiskaridze can be considered arbitrarily subjective, but there is some truth in it. At least, representatives of the Western media, talking about how the reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater took place, amicably draw the attention of readers to the fact that the sums spent on repairs look much more grandiose than the result. “By the end of the 1990s, Russia was virtually bankrupt. The budget of the Bolshoi could hardly cover the salaries of the ballerinas. Tours abroad have stopped. The dilapidated theater building has become a reflection of modern society - which is why its revival has caused such a stir. Today, the theater reopens after six years of restoration at a cost of $ 700 million, 16 times the budget, in large part because most of the money was plundered and wasted. This statement by the Times journalist is quoted in the InoSMI review.
The question of whether it was possible to carry out the restoration of this stage cheaper and faster is also of concern to domestic journalists. True, they never came to a common opinion on this matter. The Trud newspaper quotes the words of the architect Nikita Shangin, who developed the reconstruction project: “In fact, the economists who calculated our development, drawn up in 2003 on the basis of the design assignment of the Ministry of Culture, deduced the figure of 33 billion rubles. Glavgosexpertiza for construction cut this figure to 30 billion. They turned a blind eye to the uniqueness of the building, its crowded space in the urban environment and other important circumstances that significantly increase the cost of work. And at a meeting with Putin, Shvydka, without consulting anyone, unexpectedly named 25 billion. But this amount also angered Economy Minister German Gref, to whom no one explained the real problems of the Bolshoi either. Therefore, he proposed to limit himself to 10 billion, which would be quite enough for overhaul. But one way or another, and the work began, and then the amount of costs had to be repeatedly adjusted."
Moskovskie Novosti is confident that the return of the Bolshoi Theater to the historical stage is a miracle in itself. Indeed, under certain conditions, it might not have happened at all: “The initial period of the restoration of the Bolshoi Theater clearly showed that in general (especially after Mikhail Shvydkoy left the post of minister) no one gave a damn. And the gladiatorial courage of the Bolshoi administration could not change anything. The Bolshoi Theater was treated for a long time in the same way as the construction of some Kolugriv-Uryupinsk high-speed route. Only, perhaps, with some additional arrogance - like, an object of culture can wait. Unlike oil and gas, this is not the main thing in the country”.
Now the baton of protracted restoration work, most likely, has passed from the Bolshoi Theater to the Polytechnic Museum. At least, discussions about the results of the international competition for the best concept for the reconstruction of this famous museum do not subside. A very sharp assessment of the winning project was given by the architectural critic and the head of the expert council of the competition, Grigory Revzin. “I should note that the data presented on the experience of the architect clearly shows that Mr. Ishigami does not have the necessary experience. His successes - two works at the Venice Biennale - although they were an amazing artistic product (especially the work in the Japanese Pavilion in 2008), have nothing to do with the experience of a real complex construction. The rest of his works are less convincing artistically and cannot be compared with the Polytechnic Museum in terms of the complexity of the construction task. Having received such expertise myself, I would never have dared to vote for the project. I also received a call from an expert on structures, Professor Vladimir Travush, who also found Ishigami's work unconvincing, because, in his opinion, the coating made of polymer films is temporary, short-lived, good for stadiums, but of little use in a museum."
Revzin's opponent was Kiril Ass, who wrote material in support of the project of the Japanese architect. “Ishigami really did not have time to build a single museum, and his practical experience of independent work is not great: he founded his bureau quite recently, after leaving the office of Pritzker's 2010 laureates, Sanaa. However, the few projects that he has already managed to implement are striking with the poetry of constructive thinking, which we have not seen since the days of Shukhov and Eiffel - that is, just since the time when the enthusiasm for new technologies was reflected in the construction of a museum dedicated to them. The value of Ishigami's work lies in the fact that, in contrast to the gigantomania of projects by international stars like Gary or The Duke and De Meuron, they do not try to amaze us with the scale, but they reveal unimaginable qualities in the ordinary."
The timing of the appearance of a semi-underground garden around the Polytechnic Museum is known only approximately, but other innovations may appear in this area of the Moscow center in a few months. We are talking about the construction of a fence, which isolates Ipatievsky and Nikitnikov lanes from ordinary Muscovites, along with the buildings of the presidential administration of Russia and two architectural monuments - the chambers of the icon painter Simon Ushakov and the Trinity Church, which turned out to be in the neighbors of high-ranking officials so inappropriately. The statement of the Arkhnadzor public movement, which caused a great resonance in the blogosphere, was quoted in several major media outlets at once, which published articles on this matter. "Arhnadzor" managed to achieve, if not a victory, then at least a wide publicity of this initiative. From the material “Closed as in the Kremlin”, posted on the Gazeta. Ru portal, it became known that the authorities refuse to give intelligible comments on the creation of a closed territory in the center of Moscow: “The press service of the FSO did not comment on the procedure for entering the protected area. It was also not possible to get an operative comment on the situation from the representatives of the Moscow Heritage Committee. " However, a little later, the officials nevertheless outlined their position. “All conditions will be created for visiting the two architectural monuments located in the closed territory,” said the press secretary of the Presidential Administration Viktor Khrekov. He noted that the regime of access to the monuments in the closed area will be similar to the regime in force in the Kremlin. The difference will only be due to the fact that there are much fewer cultural sites and historical monuments,”RIA Novosti reports.
Meanwhile, Perm is preparing for completely different changes. A well-known architectural critic, one of the inspirers of the Golden Capital festival, Alexander Lozhkin, has moved here, and now he will be engaged in information support for the implementation of the city's general plan. “In Perm, one might say, an urban planning experiment is taking place. Urban planning documentation is accepted here, which is quite seriously different from those projects that are being done in the rest of the country, Lozhkin told journalists of the NGS Novosti portal.
In the meantime, a project for the development of the Krasnye Kazarmy microdistrict is being discussed in Perm: the concept proposed by the developers, which includes the construction of high-rise buildings, does not meet the requirements of the city's general plan. “The construction concept provides for the construction of 10- and 16-storey buildings. But the massive construction of such tall buildings is not envisaged in the master plan of Perm. Let us remind you that the concept of city development involves the construction of buildings up to 6 floors,”writes the Perm edition of“Business Class”. At the moment, the owners of the land plot are trying to find a compromise with the authorities. It is possible that it is Alexander Lozhkin who will be able to cut this Gordian knot.
