Question for native Russians (feel free to delete if inappropriate)

[sarahbrowneyes.livejournal.com]

Hey all, I am a grad student in a Historic Preservation program and I am going to be giving a presentation on preservation efforts in Moscow in the near future. I was just wondering what the general feeling of Muscovites and Russians in general was concerning preserving historic buildings and etc?

My class is on international preservation and we have studied how different countries have different ideas as to what lengths they will go to and exactly how they preserve their heritage. Through my research so far, it sounds like many buildings are being destroyed without regard for their importance, but there are those that have been restored and adapted for a different use than they originally had. My main basis for my information has centered around one group, called MAPS. Their website is maps-moscow.com if you'd like to explore it.

Any insights or thoughts are much appreciated!

Comments

[danvolodar.livejournal.com]

It's 6 a.m. in Moscow now ;)

>Through my research so far, it sounds like many buildings are being destroyed without regard for their importance but there are those that have been restored and adapted for a different use than they originally had.
Not quite sure about it, but I don't think that any of the state-preserved buildings could ever be legally destroyed or adapted for a different use. They aren't repaired too often, though.
Although, it depends on what you mean as "heritage".

[iiiaytan.livejournal.com]

Historical preservation is something that exists in Russia, just like in any other developed country. I belive preservation of buildings of historical value is a good thing, but not all of the buildings can and will be preserved, since there are limits to how preserved a city can be in that sence. It still must develop, despite its past.

There are quite a few buildings in particular, that were designated as national treasures, some buildings have historical value. By law these building cannot be arbitrarily destroyed (and no other building, of course). There are also many old buildings that are in critical state and must be either restored at huge expence, or demolished. Yet they stay untouched and fall apart, so when a businessman wants to use building or land it stands on - sometimes it is a good thing.

In any case, no building can be demolished or adapted to unintended use without city government consent. Some times bribery and law-bending comes into play in such cases, but this is not necessarily a very common thing. Only those with a lot of money can afford this, and considering that Moscow's real estate market has one of the most expensive real estate prices, no doubt there are cases where older buildings were demolished or re-used by one of them businessman for their profit.

Also there is such thing as city plan - i.e. path upon which a city will develop, so generally all building demolishions and reconstruction must be done according to city plan.

Moscow must have one, I belive, although my city, Novosibirsk, has city head fighting over its plan with city architect and such for the past 10 to 15 years or so without any success, so city goes without plan for now, which plays into evil-doers hands with all those "spot construction" buildings, built without much consideration for the surroundings.

Hmm, so what I was talking about... I guess, that is all for now. ;))

[ghooky.livejournal.com]

"developed"?


you must be dreaming

[erihan.livejournal.com]

If you are going to be giving your presentation at some conference concerning the problems of historic preservation, you may be sure that the general feeling of the audience will be that all or most historic buildings should be saved (and restored) at any cost. Obviously, that's how the system works: extreme preservationists fight to protect almost everything possible, whereas extreme developers take a city's current needs into consideration. Then some compromise decision is born to become part of a city plan.

When it comes to Moscow, developers are more powerful, as I think, in the city government, so, to keep the balance, people concerned with the problem are mostly preservationists. Thus, I suppose, you are more likely to meet those.
As for the city policy, Moscow has lots of buildings of some historic value, but only the most important are protected by law from being demolished or adapted for other use. Actually, one should agree that we can't keep all the building of 70 years or older for museums or for their original use (the country has changed a lot since then and the initial purpose of some buildings may even have become obsolete). The city government can be a bit too hasty about some decisions, however, and the corruption problem remains, so historic preservation societies do their best to save what should be saved.
Thus, your presentation at such a society is likely to be accepted well however much you propose to save, while for a presentation for some officials you should do some thorough research to convince them that preservation of more buildings is really necessary.

[ilia-yasny.livejournal.com]

The main problem is that under the cover of building preservation various groups of people try to take control over the buildings in the center of Moscow. The cost of square meter there is extremely high (I dare not even suppose, how high). So, after receiving the control over some building (for the purpose of "preservation", of course), the winnig group of people begins to lend the building to small companies for offices or to derive benefit from possessing this building otherwise. Corruption of bureaucracy and backstreet intrigues of the authorities play a huge role in these processes.
I think, nobody in the government is really interested in building preservation, power and money is all they are interested in, and "the heritage" is used only as a cloak.

[nadyezhda.livejournal.com]

you should think about using MInsk as an interesting example. Minsk was 99% destroyed during WWII and it's interesting to see what they decided was important to re-build...

Very interesting city.

[oryx_and_crake]

Many historical buildings in Moscow were demolished during communist regime. I daresay that lately there are less demolitions but probably more "reconstructions" in which only the walls are left of the original building.

I would recommend Soloukhin's "Письма из Русского музея", if you read Russian: I believe that he describes the situation very well. You can read them all - this is a relatively small book and a delightful reading - but on this particluar page and several next ones he describes what happened to Moscow and compares its fate to this of Leningrad. http://soloukhin-vladimir.planetaknig.ru/read/12659-6.html