Transcript of the program from March 25, 2006. Hello, today we’ll be talking about the following: Chinese skyscrapers are set to rise next to the Botanical Garden. There may soon be one fewer square near Universitet metro station. And what does the Union of Theater Workers have to do with the Virgin Islands? Once again, there is a scandal surrounding the Botanical Garden. The issue of the Academy of Sciences residential buildings has not yet been fully resolved—those buildings were to be declared unsafe and demolished, along with part of the garden, to make room for new luxury development. But now residents of northeastern Moscow see yet another threat before them. This time, a Chinese one. At the highest level of government, it has been agreed that several Chinese corporations will build a massive business center called Huamin Park near Botanichesky Sad metro station, covering eight and a half hectares (about 21 acres), with investments of no less than $300 million. This will be China’s largest project in Russia to date. It should be said that most construction projects carried out in Moscow under intergovernmental agreements are accompanied by scandalous protests from the public. For the construction of an Armenian business center, they wanted to demolish an operating kindergarten; a huge Turkish shopping center in Zamoskvorechye was picketed almost daily during construction; an Arab center planned for one of the embankments in the city center was blocked at a public council meeting, though apparently not for long—and there are many such examples. In the case of Huamin Park, one may assume that the fight ahead will be every bit as grand as the proposed development itself. As is well known, Muscovites are extremely sensitive about the cutting down of any green spaces, and once they begin felling trees in the Botanical Garden—even partially—demonstrations will not be long in coming. Here is what Yuri Arabov, a screenwriter who lives near the garden and a winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, told us: Y. Arabov: Our district has now become a place of pilgrimage for almost all of Moscow, if only so people can clear their lungs a little—though that’s difficult to do in Moscow. But still, our city has this centuries-old green expanse. Construction in this zone is a crime—a crime against Moscow, a crime against people. Trees will undoubtedly be cut down. Moscow today is an ecological disaster zone. The city’s problem is the environment; every tree in Moscow is now something worth fighting for. This is, in fact, the very heart of the future city’s ecology. And therefore everything that threatens even a single tree in Moscow should now be prohibited. Obviously, in the end it will all come down to politics. Since relations with China are being given special importance, the issue of building the business center will be pushed through at the very top, regardless of all the beauty of the Botanical Garden. Evidence of this lies in how picky the Chinese were about the sites offered to them for development. As the head of the developer company said at the time, “We are building a top-class business center and will not agree to do so in an industrial zone.” So after lengthy wrangling, the Moscow government, with a sigh, offered up the Botanical Garden. At the same time, the Russian-Chinese Center for Business Cooperation painted us a completely different picture of what was happening. The head of the center, Sergei Sanakoev, told us that the Chinese were practically persuaded to build their center specifically on this site, and that there was no question of cutting down any trees. Sergei Sanakoev: In fact, environmentalists are absolutely not opposed, and residents are absolutely not opposed either. The truth is that construction will take place on land that does not belong to the Botanical Garden, but is Moscow city land, which today is a jumble of unauthorized structures. As for the adjacent territory—the reserve territory of the Botanical Garden—it is unfortunately not fenced off at present and has been a neglected vacant lot for many decades. And for many decades city authorities have been looking for investment to turn this place, instead of a wasteland and garbage dump, into a proper park. There is no question whatsoever of any tree being harmed—not even a single tree. As for the Chinese side’s choice, this was an insistent request from the Moscow government. It was not that someone said, “No, we want to be here”; on the contrary, the investors were asked whether perhaps it might be possible to build here, because here something useful could be done for the city. In short, there would still be no clarity about the threat posed to the Botanical Garden by this construction if one of the Moscow government officials had not let something slip. Valery Ivanovich Kuzin, chairman of the Moscow City Committee for Foreign Economic Activity, carelessly stated that a significant part of the territory slated for development is occupied by the Botanical Garden, which is a federal institution. But, to quote him, “at the federal level we have coordinated all these issues; we have a shared vision.” End quote. What this shared vision of federal and Moscow officials, backed by Chinese business initiative and three hundred billion dollars, might mean is frightening even to imagine. We hope that this shared vision will not lead to a situation where, five years from now, the only reminder of the Botanical Garden will be the name of the metro station. musical break As is well known, most construction violations are caused not by workers on excavators, but by men in suits who never hold anything heavier than a pen. A shopping center was supposed to be built near the exit from Universitet metro station. A competition was held and, taking into account the opinion of the local territorial community, it was decided that the center would be placed on the site of the market, while the nearby square would remain untouched and even be improved. That was way back in 2001. But this week the local authorities proudly presented a construction project that miraculously takes over the entire surrounding area, including, naturally, the square. What’s more, it was presented as a project developed with every last wish of the neighboring Muscovites taken into account. Most likely, further discussion of the construction plans will proceed in a much more formal setting—within the walls of the courts and the prosecutor’s office. musical break When you hear the name “Union of Theater Workers of the Russian Federation,” you immediately picture noble masters of the stage bringing us the light of culture and enlightenment. But to the residents of 12 Strastnoy Boulevard, for some reason, they brought only a notice saying that the theater workers would like to relocate them to Novoye Kosino and Yuzhnoye Butovo (outlying Moscow districts). Because their building had suddenly, for some reason, become unsafe, and those very same theater workers would like to take it over, reconstruct it, and open some sort of cultural center. For some reason, the residents did not want to move from Pushkinskaya to Novokosinskaya, and they began to find out just what kind of sinister theater workers these were. And what did they discover? The founder of the Union of Theater Workers of the Russian Federation, whose activities are actively lobbied by many of our stars and eminent gentlemen, turned out to be an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands. And now the building committee will most certainly reject any resettlement options—except, perhaps, to those very islands. musical break That was me, Alexei Navalny, Executive Secretary of the Committee for the Protection of Muscovites, denouncing excesses on the ground. The program was prepared with the help of Evgenia Ten. If you have something to say to the Urban Development Chronicles program, write to us at echo@echo.msk.ru, marked for Navalny. Until next Saturday!