Guiding Lines: A Long Way to Alcatraz

In another movie, “Interstate 60” (2002) the main character finds himself in a strange city where all people are always happy. It transpires that the population is administered a drug inducing a state of euphoria, making them forget their troubles and do what they please. They have no idea that in truth they are all convicts.

What is happening in Moscow these days is partially reminiscent of those movies and all the other absurd comedies made in Hollywood-style of the 1950s. The logic of the federal officials, municipal authorities and commercial property investors has always been hard to follow. Today, the favorite trick of film directors – “Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house” – has become a part of Moscow’s life. Contradictory ideas are likely to reach critical mass soon.

Two latest ambitious ideas are to redevelop Moscow prisons into entertainment complexes and withdraw all gambling facilities to Ivanovo Region, 300 kilometers from the capital. Guided tours of landmark prisons have been offered to tourists for years.

Petropavlovskaya fortress (or Peter and Paul Fortress) in St. Petersburg where famous writers Dostoyevsky and Gorky, Decembrist Ryleyev and Princess Tarakanova served their prison terms is still open for connoisseurs of history. A guided tour of Vladimirsky Tsentral costs 3,000 rubles. Moscow, too, has a number of historic remand centers – Matrosskaya Tishina, Butyrskaya and Taganskaya prisons, all of which are on the list of Moscow’s top tourist sights.

But after all it is for tourists themselves to decide whether such places are worth seeing, or not. However, when the idea to refurbish prisons throughout the country with a view to turn them into tourist attractions is initiated by the powers that be, not by travel bureaus, then the issue becomes everyone’s concern.

This fall the Federal Service for Execution of Punishments (FSIN) announced its plans to rebuild landmark detention centers including Matrosskaya Tishina and Butyrka (Butyrskaya Prison) into entertainment complexes with the help of the government, which was expected to appeal to investors forthwith.

But, according to a report by the Interfax news agency, private investors have already rejected the offer to buy into prisons fearing that the projects would prove unviable, partially because the government wants future owners to raise new prison buildings, to replace those that are slated for redevelopment.

It is interesting to know how Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov will respond to FSIN’s proposals. After all, those celebrated establishments are on his territory. It cannot be ruled out that he will oppose the plan. But then, the proposal by the mayor himself to move all gambling facilities operating in the capital not just beyond the outer ring road (MKAD) but as far as Ivanovo (according to Luzhkov’s statement wired by Prime-Tass) is also highly surprising.

It seems the city hall has always welcomed all sorts of festivities in the capital. It transpires that the government of the Ivanovo Region has already allotted a large site for the project, away from industrial centers. In bygone days such desolate sites were designated namely for construction of penitentiary institutions.

It turns out that failing to discuss their projects with one another officials at various levels pull down gaming establishments with their one hand and rebuild them with the other in a rather strange manner. Where is the logic? The government’s focus on prison buildings may of course be put down to the shortage of leisure facilities in Moscow. The only sector that is more or less saturated in the city today is that of restaurants and movie theaters.

But as to bowling alleys, casinos and especially full-fledged entertainment clubs offering a wide range of leisure facilities, many parts of the city have no such properties. For example, there are virtually no freestanding leisure complexes measuring several floors, such as Champion near the Voikovskaya metro station, Pilot not far from the Ulitsa 1905 Goda metro or Kosmik near Park Kultury. Such properties are scarce.

Bowling clubs are also few, according to market operators’ estimates. The city has not more than 1,000 lanes and 10,000 per lane, whereas the U.S. has only 2,000 players per lane. None of Moscow’s largest casino is run by a foreign operator.

Time has come to decide. Either we refrain from pulling down existing clubs or go on looking for new properties for gambling operators, even if those are to be found on territories of prisons. Or, we build good highways linking the capital to Ivanovo, with all resources of the road construction complex of the city involved in the process including the ubiquitous Dormost company, the elusive Organizator, as well as the city budget.

Then, we launch a shuttle bus service between Ivanovo and Moscow. Incidentally, the Ivanovo government is very keen on implementing the entertainment project, according to its governor, Mikhail Men, hoping that it would make the province self-sufficient.

Who knows, perhaps, the government will after all succeed in finding an investor capable of undertaking the project. It could be, for example, Shalva Chigirinsky, whose ST Group can afford to build up vast territories on its own. Or, Aras Agalarov, the author of the shopping and leisure oasis on MKAD, who can get some gambling industry giants such as Australia’s Packers, McDonalds or Johnsons involved in the mega project.

Moscow, on its part, will be granted an official status of a commercial center. Then, it would be more logical to rebuild prisons into office centers. But, isn’t there a risk of going into the opposite extreme?

Let’s have a look at the Belorussky Train Station Square. “Is this is THE highly publicized Moskva City project?” foreign tourists will ask in some six years from now while driving into the Russian capital through its northern gate, by Leningradsky Prospekt. No, City begins on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment. And this is the square of Tverskaya Zastava.

But, in line with the plan of Moscow’s leading architects that square is to look very impressive. All proposed plans for its reconstruction provide for construction of several office high-rises. One of those is to be raised on the site of Korona Casino (Crown) between 1st and 2nd Brestskaya streets, by Stroiinkom-K controlled by Lev Levayev. Strikingly, office projects are planned both on the surface (two towers by Levayev and one property to be developed jointly by Levayev and Chigirinsky) and beneath it (another project by Stroiinkom-K, measuring 112,000sqm).

Railway tracks are to be covered with yet another mixed-use monster providing 330,000sqm of predominantly office space. The complex will stretch from Belorussky train station to Savyolovsky. Admittedly, a part of the complex will house a sports and leisure center, thanks to Lev Levayev. Such projects are cheaper than relocation of Butyrskaya Prison.