GUIDING LINES: Squandering the National Heritage

More than half of all Russia’s cultural monuments are in a deplorable state, the president says. The monuments are in almost critical condition, Kostroma Governor Viktor Shershunov echoes him.

We should attract private investors, or rather let the regional governments take over the heritage sites and use it for residential and commercial purposes, regional officials insist. The director of the State Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, and the chairperson of the All-Russian Society for Monument Protection, Galina Malanicheva, object, albeit quite meekly. They say the regions should not be allowed to secure freehold titles to heritage sites; if the worst comes to worst, let them rent it.

Why worry that much, says Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, after all, 10% of the financing for heritage sites still comes from the federal budget. Remarkably, the Moscow city hall has already claimed ownership of approximately 800 historical buildings which the federal government is now trying to win back through the courts.

The long-standing conflict between the federal government and regional administrations came to light at the session as the parties focused on a redistribution of property rights over the country’s architectural monuments. While federally-owned monuments fall into decay because of meager financing – the federal budget cannot afford to preserve them – the regions where the properties are situated are not allowed to finance them by law.

However, selling them off to private investors is also prohibited. Government officials are stuck in a legislative quagmire of their own making. While the bargaining continues at the top, Moscow investors are slowly but purposefully and surreptitiously destroying old properties in the pursuit of valuable sites.

In no time at all we have lost the magnificent buildings of the Soviet-era: the retail center Voyentorg, the Moskva Hotel, half of the Moscow Union of Journalists, dozens of residential mansions of the late 18th and early 19th century.

Sites occupied by historic buildings in the city center are the “tastiest” in terms of investment in new construction of offices, shopping malls or prime residential estates. The rate of return on developing business centers can reach 20-30%, and 12-15% when leasing office space.

The closer the property is to the Kremlin, the higher its value. There is probably no investor in the city who would not sacrifice all he has for a site within a kilometer of the Kremlin.

Furthermore, market players are facing a serious problem with a dire shortage of building plots within the Garden Ring. As a consequence, the city center only has opportunities for the construction of tower buildings. The outcome is sometimes quite funny. Imagine walking down a quiet narrow street with tiny mansions painted gray and blue, white and light-green pressing close to each other, and suddenly you get a bit of a shock as your attention is drawn to a seven-storied giant of glass and steel.

Of course, it is possible to understand the businessmen; after all, 18th century mansions just don’t meet any modern business or retail space requirements whatsoever. Such formats require a special approach towards the development of the building’s concept and layout. That is why developers prefer to start from scratch.

For example, the total space of an average shopping mall is about 20,000sqm, and it has to be located in a bustling thoroughfare. Also, to attract customers the mall has to meet internal layout requirements. That is why when purchasing an appropriate site in the city center, developers find it easier to pull down the old building.

Some, however, do choose reconstruction. The examples are the Petrovsky Passazh, GUM, and TsUM retail centers. But the building occupied earlier by Voyentorg has been completely dismantled. Some say it was located in a “dead area” where no department store would ever prosper.

Of course, reconstruction comes at a price, with much higher costs than demolition and a new building. But with the 30% rate of return on investments in shopping mall developments, companies can afford to preserve at least the historic facades.

If the demolition of architectural monuments continues, the appearance of downtown Moscow will deteriorate further. Driving from the Voikovskaya metro station to Tverskaya along Leningradskoye Shosse [highway] one has to admit that Moscow has started to resemble an enormous construction site – something you would never see anywhere else in Northern Europe.

All the residential houses in central Stockholm have remained intact, the way they were fifty years or even a century ago. Each crack on the fa?ade is carefully repaired. However, there are also huge shopping malls. Stockholm has preserved its historic old city Gamla Stan where a variety of souvenir shops cater for crowds of tourists, but there are no new buildings.

Selling off historic monuments to just any investor indiscriminately, without legally binding them to preserve the facades is as good as leaving those properties to the mercy of fate. On the other hand, letting those properties fall into decay unattended is no solution either.

Perhaps, the president’s proposal to consider the fate of heritage sites was timely. But government officials and investors have to work out a reasonable compromise.

Businesses interested in lifting the moratorium on the privatization of federal monuments will most likely find a way to convince the president that such a step is necessary and legislation to that effect will be adopted. But the green light for privatizing architectural monuments will inevitably result in their decrease, and in about 30 years, perhaps, only half of them will still be there.

It is a pity that Moscow will never become a modern city. Instead it will squander away its historic heritage. It is unlikely that such a city will ever earn recognition in world business circles – the very recognition the market players themselves are looking for. Also, it is a pity that later generations will have nothing to admire in the city. They will have to undo the wrongs done by the present generation.