Representatives of the All-Russian Exhibition Center and Arkhnadzor agree that the All-Russian Exhibition Center is a monument that must be preserved. But in what a monument is and what exactly should be the strategy for its preservation, the positions of the two sides differ so radically that discussions like this are inevitable and, apparently, will happen more than once.
According to Anna Bronovitskaya, the main stumbling block is the “fragmentary approach” to the forthcoming reconstruction, which is being promoted by the owners of the All-Russian Exhibition Center. Let us remind that out of more than 100 historical buildings on the territory of the former VDNKh, only a little more than a third are recognized as monuments. “The development concept of the All-Russian Exhibition Center is based on the fact that this is a territory where 45 cultural heritage sites are located, while in fact it is an integral ensemble, a single heritage site, the value of which significantly exceeds the value of the sum of its constituent elements,” says Anna Bronovitskaya. "Of course, there are much more of these valuable elements, but it is also valuable that this is a monument with a single line of development, into which it is better not to add anything at all." This position is fully shared by Natalya Dushkina: “This ensemble has all the prospects of including it in the UNESCO World Heritage List, for which such a concept as“authenticity”plays a colossal role.
In general, it should be noted that the notion of an ensemble, which, in the opinion of Arhnadzor, should become the key in the conversation about the further development of the All-Russian Exhibition Center, ran like a red thread through all the performances. For a number of those present, this position caused quite predictable skepticism: in particular, the developer of the concept for the development of the All-Russian Exhibition Center, Boris Levyant, emphasized that, despite the protected status, the city's territory should remain alive. Natalya Dushkina, in turn, objected to this that “the living existence of an object” can and should be realized through a technology “different from the technology of embedding new objects into the city’s territory,” and Anna Bronovitskaya suggested that the VVC management draw up a business plan, “which I would start from the fact that nothing is touched and nothing is demolished, but what is is used”.
“If we consider the exhibition complex as a resource, then it is, first of all, the most important educational and educational resource,” Bronovitskaya is convinced. - In our country and in our city, in particular, the problems of interethnic relations are quite acute, and they need to be somehow regulated, and in this sense, it seems to me that the exhibition could also play its role, because the pavilions of the former republics of the USSR could not simply represent independent countries, but serve as hubs for communities of immigrants from those countries. I think that Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan will be happy to show Muscovites that this is not just a place where a certain amount of unskilled labor comes from, but countries with an ancient culture and their own traditions that can also be preserved. " Vladimir Paperny, in turn, is convinced that the huge VVTs-VDNKh-VSKhV complex must be preserved as "a monument to the tragic moments of our history."
In fact, the held press club became a kind of tribune from which representatives of Arkhnadzor and like-minded people of the movement loudly voiced their position in relation to the forthcoming reconstruction of the All-Russian Exhibition Center. As you know, there are no concrete plans yet (and Boris Levyant only once again confirmed at the last meeting that the concept is just beginning to be developed), but the city defenders are very confused by the verbal promises of the VVTs management to modernize the exhibition area, fill it with hotels, entertainment and conference centers, therefore Arkhnadzor considers it its duty to speak in advance about the need to preserve the complex. Learned from the bitter experience of losses in the field of heritage that have already occurred, the movement's representatives prefer to follow the rule "the sooner the better."
“The Moscow government spent a lot of money on the reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater and did not attract an investor to add an entertainment center to it,” Anna Bronovitskaya recalled. - And if it is necessary to raise funds for the reconstruction of the All-Russian Exhibition Center, why is it not possible to allocate another site for the plans of investors, why is it necessary to extract profit from the territory of the monument? At the very least, the All-Russian Exhibition Center has a production base in Otradnoye, let's do something there, another production base was lost in recent years, besides, there are enough abandoned territories in the city that are more suitable for building an entertainment complex there."
And although the representatives of the All-Russian Exhibition Center management have not yet reacted in any way to the proposals made, at the last press club they confirmed their intention to conduct a dialogue with the city defenders. It is not excluded that the next discussion on the fate of the All-Russian Exhibition Center will be bilateral, at least, both entrepreneurs and Arhnadzor expressed hope for this.
