Good Lord, there are cowards everywhere. They’re so terrified of their superiors, and so eager to curry favor with them.
Here is our video from yesterday about the forbidden palace and the house with no windows. It clearly struck a chord with people — it already has 2.2 million views. It’s easy to see why: the situation is obvious. Officials have grown so brazen that the construction requirements they issue for neighboring buildings are simply outrageous. Better to brick up the south-facing windows of a high-rise than let anyone look into some bureaucrat’s private garden.
And of course, the people involved in this scheme feel the need to say something in response. So they can get a headline saying they’ve “debunked” it.
Well, here’s their response. The usual line: your investigation is nonsense and delirium.
But why say that at all? Architect Plotkin could have just kept quiet. He could have privately agonized over being such a timid, fearful man. Over having to design a building like that because of some lord’s whim. He could have told himself: it’s not us, it’s life.
No. What matters to him is saying that we’re the ones talking nonsense and that everything is just fine. That there was no blank wall because of Shuvalov’s dacha (country estate).
Well then, take a look. A master class from architect Vladimir Plotkin. Starting at 31:20.
Here’s the transcript for you.
Another project is the recently completed Skolkovo Park residential complex. ... It was an extremely difficult site; I had never encountered so many urban-planning restrictions on a single plot, and at one point we decided to walk away, saying the task was impossible. On the best side — the eastern side — of the MKAD (Moscow Ring Road). The very best side is the southern one. There’s a forest there. But there is also a government residence there, and it is impossible — forbidden — to look in that direction. For security reasons, not a single window was allowed to face that way. And this is a residential building.
So why is it nonsense, then, dear Vladimir Plotkin? Why is it supposedly delirium when we say it, our esteemed architect?
So it turns out the nonsense isn’t on our side — you’re just a coward covering for crooks and brazen petty tyrants?
Please, someone tell architect Vladimir Plotkin that there is still a significant difference between a merely timid person who does shameful things under pressure, and a public lackey defending his master.
And we would very much prefer that he not cross that line.