About a thousand years ago, the first settlements appeared on the banks of the Moskva River; after a century and a half, Yuri Dolgoruky founded a city - Moscow, which, according to one of the widespread versions, got its name from the river. Today, no one remembers that distant time - the Moskva River is chained in stone embankments, cars rush along them, and swimming in it is dangerous to health. The river's transport function is also almost lost, apart from river trams for tourists and the rare shallow-water barges. Recently, the city authorities announced their intention to equip the banks of the Moskva River within the framework of the "City Target Program for the Creation of a System of Intermodal Passenger Transportation in the City of Moscow Using Inland Water Transport for 2011-2013", and the National Association of Shipowners, in turn, announced a competition among the leading Moscow architects for the design of the Moskva River water area.
While the architects are thinking over the concepts of their projects, C: SA organized a round table last Friday, inviting architects, officials and journalists to talk about the river: Yuri Platonov, Andrey Bokov, Oleg Baevsky, Vyacheslav Glazychev, Alexey Muratov, Dmitry Fesenko and others. The discussion was also attended by the President of the National Association of Shipowners Andrei Novgorodsky.
The table turned out to be really round. One half of it was occupied by invited guests, the second - by ordinary people who, to one degree or another, were close to this problem. Everyone could speak, and the discussion sometimes became heated.
Three issues were brought up for discussion: the role of the Moskva River in urban development, prospects and possible strategies for enhancing the use of its water area, and possible scenarios for including the river in urban life.
The first question about the role of the Moskva River in urban development was opened by the story of the Moscow Architectural Institute professor Vyacheslav Glazychev that earlier life was in full swing on the Moskva River in winter and summer, but now the city is boring, it lacks a “human heart”. Of course, now it is impossible to remove car traffic from the embankments, but it is possible, for example, to return the river banks to pedestrians using brackets and awnings over the water.
Natalya Timasheva, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Interior + Design", suggested comparing Moscow and Paris in terms of using the water resources of the Moskva River and the Seine. In Paris, one does not feel such an aggressive attitude towards the river as in Moscow. Pedestrian embankments of the Seine, the only high-speed track along the river, named after Georges Pompidou, goes below the level of the pedestrian zone and is regularly closed in the summer - a beach with loose sand and palm trees is arranged there.
To the second question about the possible prospects for enhancing the use of the Moskva River, the editor-in-chief of the Project Russia magazine Alexei Muratov answered as follows: “It is not possible to revive the river as an artery, but it is possible to create clots of social activity on the river”.
According to Dmitry Fesenko, editor-in-chief of the Architectural Bulletin magazine, it is necessary to develop an appropriate section in the general plan of Moscow, which will be devoted to the prospects for the development of the coastline and water area of the Moscow River, where the main attention should be paid to the problem of zoning the territory.
The third question about possible scenarios for the inclusion of the Moskva River in city life impressed the guests of the round table the most. Mikhail Khazanov recalled the master plan of 1971, where there was an interesting concept of green wedges, which passed, first of all, along the river, piercing through the city center and diverging to the sides by boulevards.
President of the Union of Architects of Russia Andrei Bokov remembered Leonid Pavlov's project, in which the World Exhibition was located along the river, and Konstantin Melnikov's Luzhnikov project, where part of the territory was planned "in the amazing lace of Venice."
People who were not indifferent to the fate of the Moskva River gathered at a round table that day. Sometimes the feeling was created that we were talking about the protection of some very ancient and important monument. And it was even somehow strange to hear the memories of people who still found the river embankments "alive" and pedestrianized. Perhaps someday they will come to life again. At least on paper this July. Then the results of the Moscow River in Moscow competition will be summed up.
According to the director of C: SA Irina Korobyina, the round table is the third step towards the implementation of the Moscow River in Moscow project. The first step was the student competition, which was held at the Moscow Architectural Institute, the second - the announced competition.
