The main river of Moscow, even for the majority of native Muscovites, is in many ways terra incognita. A fragmentary view can be obtained from a river tram ride or a walk along the embankments in the very center of the city, guaranteeing a positive mood and euphoria from the panoramic views. However, outside the Garden Ring, many sections of the river turn out to be inaccessible: somewhere close to the water there is a busy road, somewhere the path is blocked by the fences of another industrial zone. You won't want to go to such places yourself: the cluttered shores, living their secret life, seem to say with their by no means metropolitan appearance: "You are not welcome here."
How many such "stalker zones" are located along the river, you can find out only by taking a ride on a motor ship specially rented to get acquainted with the unknown Moscow River: then the route also includes those places where tourist and pleasure boats do not drop in.
The staff of the General Planning Institute played an unusual role for themselves as guides and, during the trip, gave detailed comments on the results of the research carried out by the Institute in 2013 and early 2014, and on what tasks were set for the participants of the ongoing international competition, which is currently taking place, dedicated to the zones along the Moscow river. Thanks to this, the journalists were able to get acquainted with the subject of this competition and clearly see the existence of problems that had been accumulating over the years. Most of them, identified in the course of the study, were included in the terms of reference of the competition, some (for example, the development of the park zone from the Crimean embankment to Vorobyovy Gory and the reconstruction of the ZIL territory) are already being solved, and a number of problems will be the subject of analysis in the course of further work, on as experience and resources are accumulated. The international competition and the most successful solutions obtained as a result will be used in creating a concept for the development of the Moscow River, in the work on which specialists from various departments and design organizations of the capital, as well as international experts, are involved.
The first thing that all experts pay special attention to is that the embankments are practically excluded from the urban public space. They are not very suitable for pedestrians and their use as recreational areas is extremely difficult.
According to Andrey Gnezdilov, chief architect of the General Planning Institute, the lack of this function at the embankments has developed historically: “Embankments along the Moskva River have had a utilitarian character for centuries: they protected the banks, were used for freight traffic, and as a communication corridor along which roads were laid” …
Therefore, on the river there is not only a system of "objects to visit", but also "a system of comfortable connections along which a pedestrian can move from one object to another."
The existing sidewalks are clearly not enough to provide the necessary connections and make the banks of the river attractive for walks.
The head of the traffic organization department Sergey Kanep confirmed the general impression that the embankments are used exclusively as transport arteries.
This is one of the most serious problems that requires a thoughtful approach. The most obvious solutions, such as blocking traffic on the main embankments inside the Garden Ring (as was done on Krymskaya Embankment), are fraught with a multiple increase in the load on adjacent streets, which means a traffic collapse, and therefore cannot be implemented. Contestants will have to find their own options for laying pedestrian routes along the river. One of the key points of the terms of reference was "filling embankments with new quality, creating public spaces on the banks of the river that are attractive to visit, which will become points of attraction in the chain of pedestrian routes."
Some of this work is already underway. The Union of Moscow Architects, with the support of the Moscow Committee for Architecture and the General Planning Institute, held an open
competition for the reconstruction of the Taras Shevchenko embankment, during which the participants proposed a number of non-standard solutions for providing residents with access to the embankment and organizing road traffic and pedestrian connections, including in the form of crossings over highways and reducing traffic.
The routes formed along the river can and should be not only walking, but also cycling. According to Sergei Kanep, "there is an idea of forming a continuous cycle structure that will provide the main connections around the city." Note that some of the cycling routes along the embankments are already actively involved: these are recreational areas of the Luzhniki Stadium, as well as the extended link Vorobyovy Gory - Neskuchny Sad - Gorky Park - Krymskaya Embankment. During the excursion, everyone had the opportunity to be convinced of the popularity of this route. Despite the cold weather, cyclists and runners rushed along the banks. The length of this unique cycling and walking route is about 10 km: not every European city can boast of such a parkland.
The ecological, natural component of the coastal zone project is a significant part of the competitive TK. Vasily Gritsan, deputy head of the NPO Ecology of the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan, said that “the competition was aimed at creating indissoluble ecological green systems along the river, improving the ecological state, improving and comfortable contact of citizens with nature.”
So far, such infrastructure exists only on the only territory in Moscow, which was mentioned above, but in the future, similar recreational and park zones equipped with bike paths and service infrastructure will appear in other areas of the city. In the Maryinsky park, a beautiful, long, open territory is formed, including the ZIL and Simonovskaya embankments. According to experts, they can be solved in one style, with a unified approach, like those territories that are included in the list mandatory for design, linking everything into a single riverine system.
In addition to adapting the embankments for use by the townspeople, the contestants should take into account the specifics of each site in their projects. So, Vorobyovy Gory is “a specially protected area with a specific relief. It is undesirable to build capital structures on its steep landslide banks. But observation decks and other temporary structures and amenities can be placed. " Only by extending the walking connections and infrastructure in the direction of the Kievsky railway station will it be possible to redistribute the excess "load" of visitors, which now falls on Gorky Park.
During the excursion, the impression was that even in the city center the river is perceived by developers (the word “architects” does not fit with the results catastrophically) not as the main and most advantageous facade - visible from the embankments and from the Moskva River itself - but as city backyards. This applies primarily to industrial facilities, which prevail in coastal development.
But, oddly enough, ordinary buildings also suffer from the same problems.
One can speak of full-fledged town-planning ensembles, designed for a view from the water and combined with the river, literally in three to five places in the central part of the city.
Even those complexes and interconnections that were supposed to be created within the framework of the general plan of 1935 remained unfulfilled. The river descents and descents that exist on the embankments mark these potential connections between the development of the right and left banks of the Moskva River.
Alisa Belyakova, Head of the Department of Architectural and Urban Planning Competitions of the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan of Moscow, spoke about the lack of a built-in system for distributing architectural and urban planning accents as another task of the competition: “The Terms of Reference reflects the goal of creating new image objects on the river. For example, Moscow City is an object of a new era, which claims to become a symbol and an accent in the river plot.
Another one is the Ukraine hotel. The contestants should analyze the “river facade” and suggest new objects, new dominants in order for it to be symbolic, recognizable and diverse”.
To solve the problem of urban planning chaos and asymmetry in the “river facade”, the contestants were invited to focus on several zones and develop more detailed development concepts for them. This special list includes: the Stroginskaya floodplain, the already mentioned territory of the Moscow-City MIBC, which includes the embankments of Taras Shevchenko and Krasnopresnenskaya, as well as the ZIL industrial zone.
ABOUT
Alisa Tkachuk, a leading specialist of the zonal workshop No. 15, told about the plans for the development of the ZIL Peninsula.
It turned out that residential buildings will appear there 50 meters from the coast: this is a sufficient distance to avoid flooding without removing the housing from the water. But first, soil reclamation will be carried out, which is planned as one of the necessary conditions of the investment contract for the developer company.
The attention of the excursion participants was also drawn to other promising sites, whose condition is strikingly at odds with their urban planning potential. They are not included in the mandatory list of sites for design, but can be considered by the bidders as an optional extra. For example, a very interesting place is the Dorogomilovsky peninsula, which is now occupied by an industrial zone, which includes the warehouse of the Kievsky railway station, Dorkhimzavod and a thermal power station. Taking into account the excellent transport infrastructure, according to Andrei Gnezdilov, it deserves a better fate, and can become a full-fledged and respectable Moscow region.
Particular attention in the competition program is paid to the transport function of the Moscow River. It already has 50 passenger berths, 10 cargo berths and two cargo ports. But so far the river is used mainly as a tourist attraction. The number of tourist trips on pleasure boats already exceeds a million a year and is likely to grow. But whether it is worth increasing the volume of freight traffic, the contestants need to think.
According to experts, a transfer function can and should be added to river shipping. But the solution to this problem should be combined with proposals for the development of coastal infrastructure. According to Sergei Kanep, “there is an interest of shipping companies in carrying passengers along the river. But the question arises: where and where to carry them from? And one of our recommendations for the contestants was a proposal: to form pedestrian connections and provide for river structures where there is a pedestrian accessibility to them from high-speed transport stations. Such interchange hubs will become the basis of river routes from the peripheral part to high-speed transport stations.
In addition, it is planned to build about 40 treatment facilities on the embankments of the Moskva River, and about 15 existing ones need to be reconstructed and upgraded. Even if they are still doing their job well, these are unpresentable structures that spoil the view of the embankments. In many places they do not allow access to the river. Competitors should offer solutions to these problems.
If we sum up the studies of the coastal zone carried out by the General Plan, it turns out that only 1/4 of the embankments have the proper form, and 3/4 are in disrepair. After deducting the federal lands that are not subject to reorganization, 3,500 hectares are offered to the attention of the contestants. Of these, 1,000 hectares are specially protected areas, 850 hectares of which require improvement, and only 150 hectares require reorganization.
The exciting journey lasted only two and a half hours, but it seemed to the participants that it took much longer. The abundance of impressions, information about the past and present of the Moscow River, as well as about the prospects for its development, created a special atmosphere. Each passenger of the ship felt like a pioneer, a participant in the first stage of a really important event for the capital. Instead of a press-tour format that had set the teeth on edge, it turned out to be a real research expedition along the Moscow River, during which one could not only admire the beauty of this water stream and its banks, colored with bright autumn colors, but also see firsthand how much more needed to be done to make the river become not just a symbol of Moscow, but also an active "participant" in city life.
