In June, Samara presented the project of the theme park "Mountain of Gems", the initiators and ideologists of which are the Moscow Architectural Institute and the architect Maxim Poleshchuk.
The ambitions of the authors extend widely: to create a park with a national flavor, which should not be functionally inferior to foreign counterparts, to keep the quality of architecture at the level of iconic buildings, to extend the model to Russian million-plus cities after a pilot launch in order to attract tourists and stimulate the development of infrastructure. The concept covers territories much wider than the actual site for an entertainment center. For example, the second stage has already been thought out and plans have been outlined to create a single and very large public zone in the center of Samara with air bridges and a monorail. But first things first.
The site is quite real, the owners planned to build residential or office towers on it, but after the resistance of the townspeople turned to the Moscow Architectural Institute for options. This is a strip of a rather steep descent to the Volga on the "roadside" of Glory Square, the main one in the city. Nearby - the building of the city hall, a temple, a circus, a swimming pool, an embankment with bike paths and beaches. By Volga standards, everything is already well arranged here, but the "Mountain of Gems" seeks to bring the territory to the polish of the capital.
The general idea is roughly as follows. Our culture is rich in vivid fairy-tale characters: folklore, literary, cartoon, it is a shame that with such a heritage of "Russian" parks are not built, but are used ready-made models and franchises with pirates, cowboys and mermaids. In the presentation of the project, the authors refer to the popular series of cartoons "Mountain of Gems", created by Alexander Tatarsky's studio based on Russian folk tales.
Maxim Poleshchuk believes that the park “can become an object of a tourist boom and generate stable financial flows, attracting 2-4 million people a year with an area of 30-40 thousand m2 under the roof.
Since the relief on the site is pronounced, it is proposed to make the building of the complex semi-underground, with a green operated roof and a spectacular shell, for example, in the form of a bright kaleidoscope. On the lower level there is a parking lot, the upper two floors are occupied by the Experimentalium, an area with attractions and the “city of childhood”. The roof is an active public space that will continue the squares of Glory Square.
The authors also developed scenarios for the development of this part of the city of the city, based on the reconstruction of the environment of the 60-70s of building. From the "Mountain of Gems" to the circus on the other side of the street, you can throw a bridge, and to the Volga you can run a monorail with several stops: the trailers will pass through the entire theme park, both visitors and everyone else will be able to use the transport. Final - the object of the second stage, the "Water World" complex. The nearby Zhigulevskoye brewery is being transformed into a creative space like ArtPlay, while embankments and beaches have the potential for "heavy" improvement.
If the pilot project is successful, the Mountain of Gems can be opened in other large cities: Yekaterinburg, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod. But so far the concept has not found a large number of supporters. At least on the Facebook page of Maxim Poleshchuk
only criticism is heard. Apparently, despite the general dreams of Zaryadye, small towns are not yet ready for such a large-scale expansion of modern architecture.
