Illegal Construction in Moscow - Sergei Mitrokhin, Alexei Navalny, Natalia Merkuryeva - Looking for a Way Out... - 2004-06-23

S. BUNTMAN: Today we’re looking for a way out of Moscow—or into Moscow. We’ll be dealing, in real time, with the problems of construction, and problematic construction, in Moscow. In the studio are Sergei Mitrokhin, deputy chairman of the Yabloko party, Alexei Navalny, executive secretary of the newly formed Committee for the Defense of Muscovites—is that right? A. NAVALNY: It was formed three weeks ago. S. BUNTMAN: And Natalya Borisovna Merkuryeva, a representative of an initiative group of residents from Krylatskoye. The point is that Yabloko has been taking this issue quite seriously—there have been public actions as well. We’re talking about a highway that affects Krylatskoye and Serebryany Bor, and Oleg Tolkachev was on our air for a long time defending this highway, saying there was no need to build a tunnel. Let’s sort this out. Sergei, outline the key points of the problem. S. MITROKHIN: Of course, this is not only about Krylatskoye. Our committee, which was created with our participation and which I now chair, already includes 30 initiative groups from different parts of Moscow, from different districts. But they are all united by two major problems. First, there is a lack of publicity and transparency in the Moscow government’s urban planning policy; construction is often carried out secretly—“occultly,” I would say. Second, there is the destruction of the vital living environment of Muscovites. Because all these projects directly affect people: either some 27-story luxury building is being put up in your courtyard, or your building is declared worn out and on that basis you are relocated to the middle of nowhere, almost out to the Moscow Ring Road, or you are simply forced to live in unbearable conditions—as in Krylatskoye, which we’ll discuss now. About 30 such initiative groups have now joined the Committee for the Defense of Muscovites, and first and foremost we intend to defend these people’s rights. We intend to raise the question of why construction is so often carried out without the required initial permits and approvals, why the necessary reviews are missing, including environmental ones... S. BUNTMAN: Are they really missing? S. MITROKHIN: Yes. When we get to specific cases, we’ll talk about that. Why is there no transparency in the signing of investment contracts? Why are there no competitive tenders between construction companies, or why are those tenders fake? Why are sanitary and environmental standards violated openly, blatantly, and brazenly? Why, in fact, are residents not even informed—never mind consulted? And when the Moscow authorities do try to “consult” residents, as a rule they gather very elderly people, or stage fake events using employees of their own municipal services, and then declare those meetings to have approved the construction. Why is public opinion ignored altogether—the opinion of the very people who will be directly affected by the construction? And why does no one even begin to talk about compensation—financial or otherwise—for the damage people will suffer? Look: if a building is erected in front of your window, blocking your sunlight and depriving you of your courtyard, where children and pensioners might walk, then the value of your apartment goes down—you won’t be able to sell it for what you paid. No one even raises the question of compensating you for that loss. These are the questions we intend to put before the Moscow government and push toward solutions. S. BUNTMAN: Tell me, what exactly is an initiative group, and how does one come together? And what is the main problem in Krylatskoye? Because Moscow does need construction, and untangling transport problems is absolutely necessary—the question is how. And what concerns me most is that no one asks Muscovites. N. MERKURYEVA: In our case, the authorities have found a unique opportunity to run a 12-lane highway through a specially protected natural area, along the riverbank. With a capacity of 14,000 cars per hour. Just imagine: Kutuzovsky Prospekt a hundred meters from the riverbank. S. BUNTMAN: Let me object right away: Kutuzovsky Prospekt is an avenue where traffic jams are frequent, so pollution there is very high. Radial highways, since they have no traffic lights, move traffic quickly, so the exhaust buildup is not as bad. N. MERKURYEVA: We naively thought so too. But when we looked at the documentation submitted by Organizer LLC, with an authorized capital of just 2,500 rubles, the same documents listed the maximum vehicle speeds as 45, 50, and 65 km/h. That is only natural, because this road simply cannot sustain 100 km/h, even though it is classified as a first-category highway. Especially since the bypass is being built at surface level. But let me start with this: residents were completely misinformed. We were told that this highway would pass under Serebryany Bor. And as residents of this district, we knew that tunneling under Serebryany Bor was possible using the now heavily advertised Herrenknecht tunnel-boring machine. S. BUNTMAN: The one that worked in Lefortovo. N. MERKURYEVA: Yes. That was advertised very widely. But when we were invited to hearings on the matter—held in a very truncated format—no informational materials were provided. What’s more, even the people responsible for the documentation could not really give any coherent answers. And the Krylatskoye district administration itself did not even know that this was not a 3- or 4-lane highway, but that an additional 8-lane highway would be built alongside the existing 4 lanes that run along the streets of Krylatskoye. When we realized what was threatening us—what a terrible environmental catastrophe was threatening us—we began to protest, to unite, to do serious organizing work. We studied the incomplete documentation—the part we managed to obtain, and in our local Krylatskoye district office we were told they would not let us take the documents away: come and study them on site. But serious work with documentation takes time, consultation, and effort. Somehow we are studying these documents, and even obtaining them. At present we have even been allowed to come to the construction site and review the documentation. But none of it is reassuring. First of all, this route, laid through a specially protected natural area, directly violates Moscow city law No. 48 of September 26, 2001. It states that this is a natural park, and the status of a natural park implies a ban on any work other than what serves its function—that is, recreation and a clean ecological zone. S. BUNTMAN: So building the highway violates the area’s protected status and changes its purpose? N. MERKURYEVA: It changes its purpose completely. Imagine that instead of a riverbank you have Kutuzovsky Prospekt—you can no longer relax there, no longer swim there. And right now everything is blocked off with a solid fence, and there will be no access to the river at all. If construction continues until 2008, imagine how long we will be deprived of a recreation area altogether. But the real trouble is that the documentation is very poorly developed. When appeals were made to the Moscow administration and to the federal authorities asking for a review—and that is understandable, because they wanted federal budget money, and the cost of this route is 46 billion rubles—when the federal authorities examined the economic side, they issued a conclusion. In addition to very serious technical comments, they also had purely financial objections. Because the cost of this route turned out to be equal to the cost of all federal highway construction for one entire year. In other words, the annual cost of road construction across the whole Russian Federation. This is no secret; everyone knows it. S. MITROKHIN: And let me note that no tenders were held—the developer, Organizer, the same one that built the MKAD (Moscow Ring Road), simply got the money outright. S. BUNTMAN: And who built it? N. MERKURYEVA: Organizer LLC, and the design agent is Metrogiprotrans. But the point is that at present this “unique,” as they call it, project is being designed in a single stage—the project stage. In the good old days, the practice was that any unique project had to go through two stages. Why? Because preliminary studies, surveys, geological work, and everything else had to be budgeted separately. Now, since there are no preliminary studies, we cannot accurately calculate all the likely additional costs. So the current cost estimate—46 billion rubles, and even that only conditionally—could triple. S. BUNTMAN: When O. Tolkachev was here, he mentioned two arguments against building a tunnel: first, that part of Krylatskoye would be cut off from the highway, and second, that a deep-bore tunnel built with a shield is far more expensive than the highway now being designed. N. MERKURYEVA: That’s perfectly obvious. S. BUNTMAN: Obviously more expensive? N. MERKURYEVA: They themselves say it’s an expensive machine that has to pay for itself, so now they don’t know where to use it, frankly speaking. S. BUNTMAN: Well then they should have dug, excuse me. N. MERKURYEVA: Exactly—dug under Serebryany Bor. But here there is an absurdity, because there are elite cottages there, VIP residents, who understand that emissions from the ventilation shafts would of course pollute all of Serebryany Bor. So now all the emissions during operation of this highway will violate every maximum permissible concentration standard. S. BUNTMAN: When it runs above ground? N. MERKURYEVA: That’s exactly how it runs in the project. Only 1.5 kilometers are underground. And it’s a combined highway and metro route. The metro will be below, and above it there will be three traffic lanes. Can you imagine what would happen in the event of a terrorist attack? It would be a catastrophe. S. BUNTMAN: Even without a terrorist attack, plenty of interesting things happen. N. MERKURYEVA: Exactly—Lefortovo is often closed. They keep citing it to us, but it is often closed. S. BUNTMAN: When Lefortovo was being built, an expert review was conducted, and they said it could only be done as a deep tunnel, by a closed method, only with a tunnel shield—it couldn’t be done otherwise. They said it was expensive. But probably that’s how it should have been done. Because my father’s trade newspaper, which he still receives in retirement, Metrostroevets, published a huge expert review saying that the figures submitted to the government, and by the government to the developers, were heavily distorted. And it was the same old story of giving profitable contracts to the right people. We’re getting many requests on the pager from people wanting to join the Committee for the Defense of Muscovites. We’ve also had a message from Bolshaya Yakimanka about construction of building No. 50 near the Church of St. John the Warrior—construction is underway there. S. MITROKHIN: We’re waiting for the specific documentation and we’ll get to work. S. BUNTMAN: Send in the documents. Natalya Borisovna says that many documents have already been checked and reviews commissioned. In your view, what is the main problem? That construction is being done badly, or that residents and the public are not being asked? N. MERKURYEVA: You know, it’s a whole complex of problems. First of all, there should have been consultation with residents. The information should be objective, complete, and accurate, so that residents know what awaits them. And one of the key elements in an environmental review is consultation with residents. And it’s obvious why: only the people who live in a given area know the strengths and weaknesses of future plans. S. BUNTMAN: Let me immediately give the answer that is very often heard: there’s no point asking residents, because residents will always be against it. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. You can’t build highways without demolishing houses. And without building highways, you’ll never solve the pollution problem. N. MERKURYEVA: Then there has to be dialogue with residents. First, give accurate information, and then explain what residents will ultimately gain. Based on the information we have received, we now know that the specially protected area, Moskvoretsky Park, will be destroyed. The lungs of Moscow will be destroyed, and Moscow residents will lose recreation areas altogether—and not just the residents of Krylatskoye, but all Muscovites. Because the Moscow River and Serebryany Bor refreshed the whole city; westerly winds brought fresh air. Now 3,000 trees and 5,000 shrubs are being cut down. And when they talk to us about compensation—just remember the MKAD: within 250 meters of the MKAD, trees die; within 50 meters they do not survive at all. So when they tell us they will restore things, it is simply beyond comprehension how that could be possible. Ecology Minister Bochin himself said that he has now learned how to plant trees and make them take root using Western technology. But let me add one small remark: Bochin has no environmental education; he is simply an economist, and he completed university externally in Novosibirsk. What’s more, when we met with him—after he finally invited me on air during a live radio broadcast—his subordinates were unable to answer many questions fully. He said they would provide additional information. On the broadcast, and later on television, he said everything was wonderful. But when people told him that maximum permissible concentrations there were being exceeded many times over, he said: if there is such documentation—and I already have that documentation—then he would go to court with us. You know, that is a trick used by senior officials to remove all responsibility from themselves. If he was not informed beforehand, what good is it to start swinging fists after the fight? S. MITROKHIN: What does consultation with residents mean? At a minimum, it should be seen as a basic preventive measure. Because if you come to residents, the first thing they ask is: show us your documentation. Do you have the proper permit, the sanitary review, the environmental review? Is construction even allowed here if this is a protected zone? So when they do not go to residents, it means they are afraid of something—as the saying goes, a guilty conscience gives itself away. I can give some absolutely astonishing examples. Take Kuznetsky Most, for instance—which, by the way, is part of the Kremlin protection zone. On Kuznetsky Most there stood the 17th-century Tver bishops’ residence. I knew that building well; I worked there. Not long ago, a group of 13 people from yet another LLC... S. BUNTMAN: Which building was that? S. MITROKHIN: I believe No. 17. It stood in the courtyard of the buildings on Kuznetsky Most, closer to property No. 17, nearer Lubyanka. There was a wonderful 17th-century building there—and there aren’t many such monuments left in Moscow, by the way. So these people from the company I mentioned came in and simply razed it to the ground, down to the foundation. Then they built a glass-and-steel complex. S. BUNTMAN: That’s a standard trick: along the red line (the official street frontage) they put up what looks like ordinary 2- or 3-story construction, and behind it rises something else entirely... S. MITROKHIN: And in essence it is an illegal structure; there is no documentation justifying it. As I said, this is a protected zone, and there is no permit documentation whatsoever. In other words, these people simply came in and arbitrarily demolished the building, naturally with the connivance of officials. No archaeological excavations were carried out, although by all regulations they should have been, and then they built this building. That’s it. And the only residents’ group that emerged there informed us of the problem, and we have now begun working on it. If the rules on consultation with residents had been observed, of course such an outrage would not have happened. S. BUNTMAN: But that whole quarter is problematic—farther on there’s Varsonofyevsky Lane with its famous buildings, which also seem to have been quietly sold off... S. MITROKHIN: Yes. Or take another outrageous case: the German Quarter (historic foreign settlement). They are now planning to build a multifunctional shopping complex next to Yelokhovo Cathedral. Imagine if someone tried to do that in St. Petersburg next to St. Isaac’s Cathedral or Kazan Cathedral. What a scandal there would be. Here, the only people who raise a scandal are the residents directly affected. S. BUNTMAN: Knock on wood or cross yourself when you talk about St. Petersburg. Imagine it? We may yet have to. S. MITROKHIN: At least there are no such precedents in St. Petersburg. S. BUNTMAN: Not yet. S. MITROKHIN: And the astonishing cynicism of this construction is that, it turns out, the formal tenant of the land is a children’s theater. There really is a children’s theater there, but no actual theatrical activity takes place; four people live in the building and are called a children’s theater, the land is registered to them, and on that land one of the companies is supposedly building for the children’s theater, while in fact using the theater as a cover to build a multifunctional shopping complex that will block Yelokhovo Cathedral. Just imagine: the permitted distance for construction next to a residential building is 50 meters. There are buildings on Spartakovskaya Street, No. 20, next to which this building will stand at a distance of 11 meters. You say that consulting residents may lead them to refuse. But the residents understand that this building is already being forced on them. And they think: all right, the state is ready for anything, so let’s at least reach some kind of compromise—if not 11 meters away, then at least a bit farther. Or let the building be lower so it doesn’t block Yelokhovo. And even that is denied them. S. BUNTMAN: In general, solving any problem means some kind of compromise. The main thing is at what point... S. MITROKHIN: I don’t understand why a shopping complex is needed next to Yelokhovo Cathedral. In no self-respecting civilized city would anyone build next to historic buildings, next to the country’s main cathedral. Who needs this complex? Do Muscovites really need it? A. NAVALNY: You said construction in Moscow is carried out in some occult way. I’d go further and call it satanic. Because to reach a compromise, you need to have some information. Here is the typical situation in which all initiative groups arise: people look out their window in the morning and see some guys digging something in the courtyard. S. BUNTMAN: So at the stage when the guys are already digging? A. NAVALNY: Already digging. And once the digging starts, a tall fence goes up and a deep pit has already been excavated, it becomes impossible to get any information. You go to the district administration, and the head says: this is the first I’ve heard of it. You go to the prefecture—they won’t let you in. The builders chase you away. So in principle no information can be obtained—people spend half a year trying to get some documents so they can challenge at least some decisions. S. BUNTMAN: And sometimes nothing terrible or monstrous is happening, but it is all very alarming. Lyudmila writes about Malaya Dmitrovka and Posner’s school—an excavator is working there. On what grounds, no one knows. There’s the center in Maryina Roshcha, Konstantin Raikin’s center, though in Maryina Roshcha there’s practically nothing there but gas lines. Then people mention the corner of Rozhdestvensky Boulevard and Neglinka, at Trubnaya Square—they say a huge building is going up. But I know that it isn’t a huge building. There is simply no information. The only information is the picture hanging on the fence. A. NAVALNY: The standard method of construction in Moscow is: first dig the pit, then get all the approvals—and that is not an exaggeration. Take the Krylatskoye case: we come to the developers and say, you have a construction site, show us where the site boundary is. They say, sorry, it hasn’t been approved, but don’t worry, we’ll build and get everything approved at the same time. The red line has not been defined. Earthworks are underway, heavy machinery is operating, even though the permit issued is only for design work—they have no right to do any of this. And it is useless to call the police, useless to complain. It’s good that an active group of residents simply blocked the construction and prevented some of the heavy equipment from entering. But that was more a gesture of desperation. S. MITROKHIN: That’s one case. But imagine even more outrageous ones, when you are living in your home and tomorrow someone comes and says: sorry, you shouldn’t live here anymore, wealthy people want to live here, they want to build a luxury mansion, so we’ll relocate you farther away. S. BUNTMAN: They won’t say it like that. They’ll say you’re living in dangerous emergency conditions... S. MITROKHIN: More or less. Take Botanicheskaya Street near the Botanichesky Sad metro station and next to the Botanical Garden itself. There the prefecture gave permission to build a luxury building on the site of the houses currently there. They came to the residents and said: your housing is unsafe, we’re going to relocate you. But the wear and tear on their houses is only 10 percent—there is an official report to that effect. And on top of that, they want to carve off a piece of the Botanical Garden so the residents of the new luxury building can enjoy nature more. But what is interesting is what the officials in that prefecture say. They say: you know, we looked for a place for this construction for a long time, and we realized that the quietest people live here—they will protest the least. They tested public opinion; in other places residents rose up, but here they concluded that people would stay silent—so this is where they are building. That is the attitude. And by the way, that shows that public opinion, if it becomes active, if it says no, if it expresses itself in any way at all, does have a chance of stopping these outrages. N. MERKURYEVA: But the saddest thing for our city is that there is no approved urban development plan for Moscow and its districts. S. BUNTMAN: What about the master plan? A. NAVALNY: The master plan has not been approved. Formally and legally, any construction on the territory of Moscow is illegal. Because the master plan has not been approved by the federal authorities. S. MITROKHIN: The master plan has not been approved, has not been presented to the public, and has not gone through public discussion. And what’s more, some of the projects we mentioned—for example, Kuznetsky Most—are not even provided for in the master plan. The building in Lefortovo, in the German Quarter, is also not in line with the master plan. So it is basically a worthless scrap of paper—that’s why they don’t show it to anyone, so no one will discover that it does not correspond to the construction now underway. N. MERKURYEVA: And that is very convenient, because afterward they can retroactively justify anything and bend all the laws to fit the existing situation. In earlier times, whether good or bad, I don’t know, but nothing—not a decision, not a building, not a structure—could be built without a master plan. S. BUNTMAN: But in the old days—good, bad, evil, strike out as appropriate—who asked anyone when they demolished an entire quarter on the Meshchansky Streets? They demolished everything; excuse me, only the Muslims held on to the mosque. Everything was torn down, all the historic buildings, the Osterman-Tolstoy estate was dismantled, they dug a pit, and it filled with water—because, it turned out, they had forgotten that the Naprudnaya River existed there, and that the ponds in the Central House of the Soviet Army garden were, excuse me, actual ponds and not a swimming pool. And they couldn’t sort it out. Who asked whom? No one asked anyone. N. MERKURYEVA: You say that because you know that one case, that unique case. Mistakes can happen. But here the number of mistakes is multiplying not singly, but by the dozens. S. MITROKHIN: Besides, of course, returning to Stalinist methods of urban planning is hardly the best option. S. BUNTMAN: Right now we are sitting in the middle of a mistake, a brilliant mistake—the aerodynamic wind tunnel that is New Arbat. A. NAVALNY: No one is saying things were ideal before. S. MITROKHIN: One could cite many examples of what was done before. For example, radioactive waste from the construction of certain facilities used simply to be dumped on site and compacted into the ground—as happened at the Kurchatov Institute. To this day, the danger from that kind of activity in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s is beginning to explode like buried mines. Take Rokossovsky Boulevard in Moscow’s Eastern District: an MSU laboratory conducted research there and found buried radioactive waste. Now a developer has come in, and what does he want to do? He wants to build a house there. That means they will dig a pit and all those radioactive layers will be disturbed. Can you imagine what that will mean for residents of the surrounding neighborhoods? We have also taken up this case and will try to prevent that outcome, but to answer your question: citing what was done under Stalin, under a totalitarian regime, is completely inappropriate to current conditions. S. BUNTMAN: Sergei writes to us: “Under Brezhnev they wanted to build a house on Geroev Panfilovtsev Street; we collected signatures and the house was not built.” So it was possible then, and it is necessary now, to organize. To come together and resist—not because we simply don’t want highways under our windows. A. NAVALNY: What we need is publicity in construction policy. N. MERKURYEVA: I still want to recall the Brezhnev era, not even speaking of Stalin’s time. Stalin, when 60 percent of industry across the country had been destroyed, rebuilt industry in 20 years, gave people housing, and people began to recover from the horrors of war. S. BUNTMAN: It was Khrushchev who gave people housing. N. MERKURYEVA: Khrushchev solved the problem. S. MITROKHIN: And under Stalin many people got housing in the GULAG (the Soviet forced-labor camp system), so let’s not go there. S. BUNTMAN: And at what cost was that housing built? N. MERKURYEVA: And at what cost did the people win the war? S. BUNTMAN: At the cost of 27 million lives thrown away for nothing. N. MERKURYEVA: Fine, let’s not argue that point. I want to say something else: in earlier times there were specialists and very serious design institutes that did genuinely serious work. And every unique structure underwent the most rigorous technical review. S. BUNTMAN: Now that is a different matter. Why doesn’t that happen today? N. MERKURYEVA: Because the whole system has fallen apart. The urban planning system has fallen apart. Now some LLCs, or private individuals, by buying a license, have the right to build. They have no idea what may happen later. S. BUNTMAN: But there are regulations. N. MERKURYEVA: What exists now are not regulations and laws, but permissive administrative orders. S. MITROKHIN: In the old days there was no business in Russia, no entrepreneurship. There was totalitarian power. Now a somewhat different kind of power has emerged, and business has emerged. All over the world, the role of the state is to restrain business when it harms others. S. BUNTMAN: Are our authorities not prepared for that situation? S. MITROKHIN: Something quite different has happened here. We have seen a total merger of business and government. When the authorities act in the interests of business and receive kickbacks for it—in other words, when the authorities themselves have become a разновидность business—then things are much harder. But even in this situation, when citizens unite and resist, they can achieve results. I’ll give two examples. One is a specific local case in which I took part: on Yegerskaya Street in Sokolniki they wanted to build a 27-story luxury building in the courtyard of a residential house. After residents came out into the street and formed a wall in front of the bulldozers, that construction was stopped. The second example concerns the whole city: just a few days ago the mayor of Moscow issued a decree requiring that residents of dilapidated housing be relocated within their own neighborhood, or at least according to their choice. That happened as a result of a whole so-called relocation movement... an intra-Moscow one... S. BUNTMAN: But one that was also supported by Moscow deputies. A. NAVALNY: They were forced to support it; they had nowhere to go. S. MITROKHIN: And Yabloko supported them too. S. BUNTMAN: There are deputies who supported them from the very beginning—D. Kataev, who always moves like an icebreaker. S. MITROKHIN: I also took part in supporting the residents of Yegerskaya Street. But I did not play the main role there, just as Kataev did not play the main role. The role was played by the citizens themselves, who united and resisted. S. BUNTMAN: Let’s put a question to our listeners: what worries them more—that there is unprofessional, bought-and-paid-for construction, that things are simply built badly—or that no one informs Muscovites about it and no one asks the residents concerned? Let’s divide the problem that way. If you think the main problem is that construction is done badly, broadly speaking, call 995-81-21. If you think the main problem is that no one asks Muscovites’ opinion, call 995-81-22. It’s clear that both matter. But now my question is: once you have gathered the construction documents and formed an initiative group, what next? How do you get out of this situation? N. MERKURYEVA: The most interesting thing is that when we wrote to the president about our problem, the reply came not from the president, but from the Krylatskoye district administration. S. BUNTMAN: Because it was “sent down.” S. MITROKHIN: That’s the usual case. N. MERKURYEVA: In fact, when we consulted the prosecutor’s office, they told us this violates the fundamental law of the Russian Federation. So naturally we will go to court, which we are already doing, and we will also commission an environmental legal review that will allow us to say, with evidence and documented facts: gentlemen, you are simply incompetent. Or else: all right, you’ve convinced us. S. BUNTMAN: Back in 1917, a remarkable system of governance was devised in Russia, a very sturdy three-legged structure: executive power, elected power, and the power of experts, all practically equal. That is, residents were represented by clearly elected people under that law, under that idea; there were people who implemented decisions, and there were people who conducted expert reviews in each case. After the revolution, that system survived in Finland—almost to this day. In effect, you are now restoring that third leg of the stool. How can one make that work properly? Is it possible? A. NAVALNY: First and foremost, this situation has to be made public. Let me give an example: the Duma is now adopting an urban planning code. All the architects in the country are against this urban planning code, but they can do nothing. Even the Moscow government is against it. But because the situation is not being discussed by the broader public, no one understands what is happening, and such things get passed easily. S. BUNTMAN: “I think it was a mistake not to invite representatives of the Moscow government. Their opinion would be interesting.” Representatives of the Moscow government and Moscow’s representatives in the Federation Council have expressed their views more than once—they just don’t come in the evenings. We invited them, but they don’t come to us in the evenings. They come on weekends, to Ksenia Larina’s program. Just compare the facts. I would like a serious debate; someday it will happen. N. MERKURYEVA: And we want an open discussion with the mayor of Moscow, or a round table. S. MITROKHIN: Unfortunately, they usually avoid such discussions. A. NAVALNY: We present our arguments. Let them consider our arguments ridiculous and naive if they want, but then let them present theirs and refute what we are saying. So far we have not seen that. N. MERKURYEVA: I don’t think our arguments are ridiculous or naive. They are very well grounded—thanks to our experience and knowledge. S. BUNTMAN: I’ll announce the results of our poll. So, what worries and irritates Muscovites more? We received 1,659 calls. Of those, 31% think the main thing is that construction is done badly, while 69% are irritated by the fact that Muscovites are never consulted. In other words, construction may even be done properly, but we will never know that. Our questions must be answered, and we have said this many times before—whether walking through Patriarch’s Ponds, discussing transport problems, or even the removal of tram No. 23 from Leningradsky Prospekt, when that was still completely unnecessary. Let’s try to draw some conclusions from our program. S. MITROKHIN: The main thing, of course, is that the entire decision-making system in urban planning must be completely changed. It must become absolutely public and transparent. If that happens, then construction will be done much more properly as well. And perhaps we will avoid terrible tragedies like Transvaal Park. But there are also situations that may not be quite so horrific, yet are still very serious. For example, on Otkrytoye Shosse people live in so-called “phenol houses,” where they are developing cancer, and officials simply do not care. There are many such situations. There must be complete transparency and order in the system of land allocation for construction, and of course the mechanisms of public opinion must be fully engaged—without that, Moscow cannot continue building. A. NAVALNY: A normal situation is one in which you understand what is being built next to your home; one in which the public and journalists have the right to obtain information about who is building, how, for how much money, and who is paying for it—the taxpayers? If 46 billion in taxpayer money is being spent, then let them explain why it is being spent there and not somewhere else. That’s all. That is all we want. We are not some lunatics trying to say that construction should be banned everywhere and vacant lots left untouched, and so on. The city must develop, naturally, but we must participate in decision-making. S. BUNTMAN: Because the city is developing for whom? A. NAVALNY: For us, yes—not for officials. In the end, we should be calling the tune—we’re the ones paying for everything. N. MERKURYEVA: And I would add that our administration, our leaders, our authorities should think on a national scale and about future generations—what kind of people they are raising, and what this city is for in the first place. Just imagine: they destroy the environment, destroy the lungs of Moscow, and then there will simply be no people left who need to drive those same cars. And one more striking thing: when you look at traffic jams, there is one person sitting in each car. The whole West has already moved toward... people can consolidate, gather in one car and travel together... S. BUNTMAN: The whole West has not moved to that. N. MERKURYEVA: At least I have seen it in England and in Israel. In other words, we must constantly remember that we live together, we are a community, and our moral principles are shaped not only by law, but by experience—by the long experience of living together. S. BUNTMAN: Exactly. That is why we must live together and openly. And I promise that we will definitely do programs on the urban planning code, and discussions with experts. And we will certainly continue talking with the Committee for the Defense of Muscovites—since we are Muscovites, we will defend ourselves. Thank you all. And let me remind listeners that Sergei Mitrokhin, deputy chairman of the Yabloko party, Alexei Navalny, executive secretary of the Committee for the Defense of Muscovites, and Natalya Merkuryeva, representative of the initiative group of residents of the Krylatskoye district, were with us in the studio. All the best.