about the story of the demolition of the Middle Trading Rows, Red Square, Building 5. I drove past them almost every day—it was a convenient way to get onto Pyatnitskaya Street from the city center. Since the beginning of summer, they had been covered in scaffolding, and it was obvious that construction work was underway there. So when Kozhin (the presidential property manager) said they were ONLY JUST BEGINNING TO INSPECT the buildings, it became clear to me that they were going to demolish everything quietly. Once they started work without permits or a project plan, everything was obvious. Right away, on behalf of KZM, I threw together several inquiries to different agencies. Responses came from OATI and the Land Inspectorate saying they had carried out inspections and found no violations. Supposedly they were just removing trash and old furniture. zhenshen and I even did a segment about it on "Ekho" (Echo of Moscow, a radio station). Some guy representing the developers said back then that we were paranoid idiots. There would be no demolition. And there you have it. A pile of bricks.