Guiding Lines: A Trowel and Themis

It is possible that the authorities of the city and the constructors have happened to moderate their working enthusiasm. A reason for which may be a new turning point in the dispute between the defenders of the architecture of St. Petersburg and the city authorities. A group of citizens, namely Mikhael Belyaev, Anna Plyuto, Anna Chernova and Elena Malysheva, in June 2007, addressed the St. Petersburg city court with a request to revoke law No. 152-14 "On St Petersburg’s target program of the construction of an administrative business center" passed in March last year.

The claimants insist that the law breaks the federal law "On the environment" and "On the ecological examination" and city laws, regulating the order of public discussion of town-planning projects and informing the citizens of St. Petersburg of plans for construction. Representatives of the city and the legislative assembly have admitted that neither examinations, nor hearings have been held, but, in their opinion, were not necessary, as "the law on "Gazprom-City" does not concern town-planning activities. The city court has accepted the point of view of the authorities and dismissed the plaintiff.

However this did not stop them and they have continued to fight in the Supreme Court. At the end of October the cassation board of the Supreme Court made a decision, which can be called a private victory for the defenders of architecture. The high court did not recognize that the Okhta-center program of construction is illegal, but it revoked the decision of the city court, which representatives of the city administration and parliament insisted on keeping. The Supreme Court did not revoke it on a formal basis (which the defenders of architecture were afraid of).

The court has specified a number of infringements of the law made not only by the city court, but also in acceptance of the program of construction. In particular, the court has confirmed that the program of construction, contrary to the law "On the preservation of the environment" and the town-planning code, has not passed an obligatory ecological examination, and the clause of the town-planning code “on obligatory public hearings for construction plans” has also been broken.

The Supreme Court has also noted that the program of construction, contrary to the Budgetary Code, does not provide for the carrying out of obligatory competition on work. And finally, the court found one more rather curious detail. "In an explanatory note in the draft to contest the law <...> a specific site is provided – the Krasnogvardejsky area of St. Petersburg <...> Subsequently the law has been changed regarding the exception of the mention of this place," specifies the statement of the Supreme Court.

It turns out that the authorities of St. Petersburg can move the construction to any other place in the city center, to Vasilevsky Island, for example, near the Peter and Paul Fortress or with a view of the Kresty prison. Probably, so that officials and top-managers don’t forget the Russian proverb about the affinity of a wallet and a prison.

As a result the Supreme Court has cancelled the decision of the city court and has unambiguously specified: "Under new consideration of the case the court must find out all the important circumstances for the correct permission of the applicants’ requirements and based on that make a lawful and valid decision.”

Probably, with this in mind, the judges of the Supreme Court have taken care of a favourable environment for colleagues from the Constitutional Court, who sooner or later will have to move to St. Petersburg. They have also simultaneously shown to Valentina Matvienko and Sergei Mironov, who have suggested many times to transfer to St. Petersburg not only the Constitutional Court, but also a Supreme Court, the aesthetic and architectural predilections. Even if this is so, city authorities should think hard about it and not pretend that nothing happened. Meanwhile, one vice governor has stated that the decision of the Supreme Court will in no way affect the realization of the program of construction.

This is true, construction will hardly stop because of the decision. However the phraseology of the statement of the Supreme Court, in the opinion of experts, should cause not only the decision of the city court made in June to be cancelled, but also make serious amendments to the program of construction of the Okhta-Center, which will eliminate the infringements of the law noted by Themis.

Defenders of architecture, and not only in St. Petersburg, show constrained optimism. "The decision of the Supreme Court allows to hope for reasonable change of the construction project," considers David Sarkisyan, director of the Shuseva State Museum of Architecture.

It is necessary to note that the decision of the Supreme Court is not the first alarm call for the city authorities. At the end of 2006, the World Monument Fund (WMF) included the skyline of the center of St. Petersburg in the annual list of 100 architectural masterpieces and archeologic subjects that are under threat of disappearance. In other words, it has equated the consequences of the construction of Gazprom-City Okhta-Center to the destructive flooding after hurricane Katrina, to the earthquake in Turkey and to the barbarity of the talibs who seriously damaged Buddah statues in Afghanistan.

Then in spring 2007, the director of the World Heritage Center of UNESCO, Francesco Bandarin, spoke on the subject of the “unacceptability” of the architectural solutions of the new building project opposite Smolny Cathedral (or, according to the Supreme court’s decision, in another place within the historical center).

And recently, in November 2007, the WMF published a new list of neglected historical heritage. And the skyline of the center of St. Petersburg as well as another St. Petersburg “nominee” – the tower of the Institution of Metrology, designed under the order of Dmitry Mendeleyev – unfortunately, are still on the list.

Perhaps, the city authorities do not believe or sincerely do not realize that authentic, well preserved and reasonably restored architectural features of the city center are popular goods, that are in big tourist demand. Its realization may bring no less profit than the rent of modern housing and offices. The time of building modern-style constructions “at the edge of the center,” for example, as with the Eiffel Tower, was over if not at the end of the 20th century, then in the middle of the 21st. But we cannot forget about society’s opinion on the subject of the project’s construction.

Yes, the voice of the Russian defenders of architecture is more silent than their foreign counterparts, and people from St. Petersburg are more inert than Parisians, whose protests forced the mayoralty of the French capital to take the modern Le-Defans block out of the city’s boundaries.

City authorities should change the program of construction now. Opponents of the construction may soon - next spring - have mighty allies from among Moscow St. Petersburgers. Some of them are planning to return to their native city and will hardly want that their tenure in authority to be connected in the minds of people from St. Petersburg with the destruction of the time-old skyline of St. Petersburg which is defined by the bell tower of the Peter and Paul fortress and the dome of Isakievsky cathedral.

Then the heads of the city and Gazprom will feel all the charm of the situation that former head of Transneft Simeon Weinstock felt in Irkutsk when the president’s pencil in a second changed the route of the East-Siberian pipeline.

"Will you manage, Valentina Ivanovna, will you manage, Alexei Borisovich?" the national leader will ask. And in fact nothing will remain but for them to sigh together: "We will manage, Vladimir Vladimirovich!"