Yura Vilnid (youngmeteor) asked me to look into the Tekstilshchiki Stadium, which is being handed over for development. We started digging into it and immediately uncovered some astonishing facts. In 2003, the stadium was added to the register of sports facilities slated for restoration, and in 2004 it was sold to a commercial company for the construction of an apartment building. It’s an interesting case, and a lawless one. I’ll keep pursuing it. But for now, we made a segment about the stadium with zhenshen: What won’t people do for President Putin and the GREATNESS OF RUSSIA. Have a second child? Sure, no problem. Naturally, we are all ready to carry out the President’s directive, his so-called “commander’s injunction,” as set out in his address to the Federal Assembly (the Russian parliament). And while the technical side of producing children is more or less clear to us, raising them presents certain difficulties. To bring up полноценные Russians, we will need not only strong nerves and pedagogical talent, but also kindergartens, schools, and sports facilities. How could we do without them? Children need to move and do physical exercise, because soft and flabby bodies are in no way suited to building a Great Russia. Take Tekstilshchiki Stadium in the western district of the capital, for example. It is an excellent sports facility. True, it is now in a very neglected state. But surely this is exactly the time to restore it. Moscow’s population is growing. According to the city’s master plan, priority is supposed to be given to social infrastructure facilities—such as a stadium. That is exactly how local residents saw it when they appealed to the prefecture (district administration) with a request to put the stadium in order. The reply they received surprised them greatly. Yuri Vilnid, a member of the citizens’ initiative group, explains. Vilnid: **I’ve lived there for a long time, and I can simply see that the stadium is gradually, gradually deteriorating. Weeds are growing there and no one is looking after it. I have the feeling that clouds are gathering over it, if it has become unnecessary to everyone. So I decided to take a civic stand, and in accordance with the law on the right to information I submitted a request to the prefecture. And I received a reply saying that the transfer of this stadium for development is under consideration. Ten years ago it was a very respectable stadium; powerful lighting equipment had been installed there. In winter they flooded it to make an ice field. A bandy team trained there. It was a very strong team. And people were constantly playing football there too. The decline began about five years ago. It matters to me that citizens take part in the decision-making. That there be a public discussion. Or at least that information be provided, because as it is, you have to fish it out by almost guerrilla methods. I plan to go to the local district administration and the Mozhaysky municipality, and to the deputies of the Western District, to meet with them and find out how this fate is being decided, and who is making which decisions, on what grounds. **Once again, the struggle for Muscovites’ health, physical fitness, sport, and a healthy lifestyle has ended with the construction of an apartment building on the site of a stadium. No argument there: making several million dollars from construction is a magnificent sport. It has adrenaline, bravado, and the satisfaction of a result achieved. Unfortunately, it is not exactly a mass-participation sport, and it is unlikely that many residents of the western district will be able to take it up. We asked the Western District prefecture and the Moscow Sports Committee for clarification. Both flatly refused to comment on the situation. So we decided to investigate it a little ourselves. And remarkably, in just half an hour we found out that Tekstilshchiki Stadium is a unique facility. It is literally leading a double life. In the prefecture’s official papers, it is listed as sold and slated for development. But in a Moscow government resolution on the placement of physical culture and sports facilities, it is listed as a football facility currently being used for other purposes and subject to reconstruction with restoration of its original function. In other words, this is truly schizophrenia in its terminal stage. In the city program, in 2003, they triumphantly report its upcoming restoration. And in 2004 they sell the stadium for the construction of a residential building. A beautiful scheme. A very beautiful scheme. In the near future, the Committee for the Protection of Muscovites will ask the prosecutor’s office to assess the elegance of this bureaucratic invention as well. Last week, all the mass media showed the beaming face of Kozhin, the head of the Presidential Property Management Department. He was talking about the construction of the Kremlin complex right on Red Square. This will be the reconstruction of the so-called Middle Trading Rows, as a result of which Moscow will get the best hotel in the country and the most luxurious apartments. Since our program is always looking for the hidden pitfalls, let us tell you that this triumph was preceded by a fierce confrontation with Moscow City Hall, which insisted that the reconstruction project go through the entire city system of various architectural councils. And to avoid that system, Kozhin secured the emergency designation of the Middle Trading Rows as a federal-level heritage monument. As a result, the project will be approved only by federal authorities, bypassing Moscow. And again, about the presidential property manager. He has launched such intense construction activity that we will probably be mentioning him often. As is well known, it is his agency that is planning the construction of a new parliamentary center on Krasnaya Presnya. Local residents, thoroughly unhappy with the idea, came to the district administration to find out what exactly was going to be built. And guess what they heard. The officials spread their hands apologetically and said, sorry, they’re not showing us anything either. Official representatives of the local authorities were told that the documentation was strictly secret and that no one would be allowed to see it. Well then, not a bad approach to building a facility costing taxpayers a billion dollars.