S. BUNTMAN – Alexei Navalny, executive secretary of the Committee for the Protection of Muscovites. Alexei, good afternoon. A. NAVALNY – Good afternoon. S. BUNTMAN – And just now, live on air, you heard Urban Planning Chronicles, our weekly segment, and now, I think, from time to time we’ll be going live with direct conversations with listeners. Put on some headphones right away, Alexei. Here, take a pair, because in a little while we’ll be taking phone calls from listeners. For now, send in messages to the pager and online. But first, let’s deal with a general political question. Ivan, a doctor from Moscow, asks: “People say all your activity is tied to trying to get elected somewhere—now to the Moscow City Duma?” A. NAVALNY – You know, I would be absolutely delighted if all political parties, all movements, everyone who wants to get elected anywhere at all—to any level of parliament—started dealing with construction and development issues, because that certainly wouldn’t make things worse. Unfortunately, there aren’t many people eager to do that, because dealing with these issues means spoiling your relations with the city authorities, with the prefecture, with the district administration, with the people involved in all this. S. BUNTMAN – So you mean there are much shorter routes to getting elected somewhere and advancing your career— A. NAVALNY – Yes, yes, yes. S. BUNTMAN – Than dealing with construction problems. A. NAVALNY – Yes. In fact, we’re very glad when deputies or political parties—opposition or otherwise—help us, but unfortunately that doesn’t happen very often. S. BUNTMAN – All right. So what is the city’s main urban planning problem right now? In Urban Planning Chronicles you talk about facts, trends, whole cases and incidents—how would you group them? Right now, what is the most important thing happening, and what should city residents be paying attention to? A. NAVALNY – I’d say the problem is obvious. We run into it every day. It’s transportation. Huge areas are being built up for housing, and there are plans to build nearly 70 million square meters of housing, and I’d say it’s not always being built in a way that properly addresses infrastructure and transport, because we are heading straight toward transport collapse. If we keep slapping up what we’re slapping up now, soon everything will just grind to a halt, and it’s unclear what will happen then. S. BUNTMAN – But on the other hand, there is a lot of active construction of interchanges right now, the Third Ring Road is being, forgive the expression, “civilized,” and with great effort one of the main traffic jams at the intersection with Leningradsky Prospekt is being tackled—it’s a nightmare there. A. NAVALNY – You know, it’s not as active as it ought to be, because after Moscow was stripped of its road fund, the city has been building far fewer roads than it could. In any case, it needs to build about ten times more roads per year to solve this issue, because we can see that housing and offices are being built at an enormous pace. Citizens are buying cars at an enormous pace. The number of cars doubles every three years. But road infrastructure isn’t keeping up. S. BUNTMAN – Is there any way out of this? Is it a lack of coordinated policy, or, for example, a lack of limits for the construction business that ought to exist? A. NAVALNY – First, the federal authorities should return Moscow’s road fund revenues to the city. Second, we need to use the funds we do have wisely. I always cite the Krasnopresnensky Prospekt now under construction as an example. Each kilometer of that avenue costs $200 million. Comparable projects in Europe cost around $60 million. That is, even taking into account that there— S. BUNTMAN – Plus the climate is bad here. We have difficult geology, lots of underground utilities. A. NAVALNY – Yes, and we also have special officials who are very fond of large budgets. So of course we need to ask for new money for roads and try to use what we have properly. S. BUNTMAN – Well, maybe then the federal authorities are right, if we imagine an ideal situation, to be puzzled by endlessly prosperous Moscow, which is building at a tremendous pace and spinning huge amounts of money, yet still can’t build roads or ensure its own functioning without federal injections. A. NAVALNY – Moscow should receive for roads the taxes collected in Moscow. We’re not asking for money from the stabilization fund or oil revenues to be handed over for road construction. What is collected in Moscow should stay in Moscow—that’s one thing. Second, all federal institutions are located here, and they use this transport infrastructure too. Just walk past any ministry. It has fenced off half the nearby street for parking, the parking lot is half-empty, and completely illegally they’ve put up a barrier and happily park their cars there. And the rest of us have to park three rows deep because of them. So I’m very far from thinking that the federal authorities would somehow take better care of Muscovites than the current city authorities. In reality, they’re all the same. S. BUNTMAN – Let’s turn to some serious questions—about the committee’s work and what can actually be done. A question from the internet: “You reached an agreement with Don-Stroy to create some kind of commission to work with citizens.” Then there’s this from someone named Atya—I don’t know whether that’s a man or a woman—signed “real estate”: “How much have you personally enriched yourself through cooperation with Don-Stroy?” And the next question: “Tell us what is happening now at the construction site at 33 Biryuzova, which you now prefer to keep quiet about.” A. NAVALNY – Well, I’ll be happy to explain. We didn’t exactly get rich from cooperating with Don-Stroy. About a year ago, after part of an initiative group came to us complaining that they were being physically threatened and subjected to violence, we issued a statement saying that we would gather all initiative groups in Moscow and simply block the construction. After that, Don-Stroy met with us and said it was prepared to investigate such cases. The meeting was mostly ritual in nature: they said, yes, let’s be friends, let’s not smash up construction sites, and we’ll give you all the necessary documents. Then we parted ways. Naturally, we never created any kind of committee together with Don-Stroy— S. BUNTMAN – Nor any commission, accordingly. A. NAVALNY – Nor could we have, of course—we’re a public organization, not a state body. We work quite closely with the initiative group dealing with 33 Biryuzova, 41 Raspletina, Marshal Sokolovsky Street—there’s a whole bunch of sites there where people are fighting Don-Stroy. If the question comes from a resident of Shchukino, then they can regularly see me at the various rallies these initiative groups hold. I want to say that the situation there is very difficult, and the Northwestern District is one of the most lawless when it comes to construction and compliance with regulations. The situation is very difficult, and it’s one of those places where, for example, I still don’t see what the way out could be, because passions have run so high that at the last rally I attended there was nearly a fistfight between different branches of various initiative groups. S. BUNTMAN – What? So there are already contradictions between different protesters? A. NAVALNY – At the moment it’s even, you could say, a unique situation: Don-Stroy has created an initiative group in its own support. And I don’t mean that these are all people paid to come out and rally. These are residents of communal apartments whom Don-Stroy is resettling. In other words, it gathered— S. BUNTMAN – People who stand to gain in practical terms— A. NAVALNY – Naturally. They’re interested in Don-Stroy demolishing their houses and moving them elsewhere. They couldn’t care less about the interests of residents on Biryuzova or Raspletina. It’s actually quite an interesting phenomenon. S. BUNTMAN – And who, interestingly, can resolve such conflicts in principle? Who? You say your public organization can’t resolve it, can’t find a way out right now—but who can? In principle, how are such things resolved, or how should they be resolved, Alexei? A. NAVALNY – It’s very simple. There are state authorities whose job is to monitor this. Why do conflicts arise? Because something is being violated. Trees are cut down without permits, building height limits are exceeded, someone seizes someone else’s land—and that creates a conflict. Or insolation standards are violated and your windows are left in the shade. There are agencies for this: the State Architectural and Construction Supervision Inspectorate, the prefecture, the district administration. They are obliged to come in and stop such violations. And where state authorities fail to come in and stop them, that’s where an outraged public emerges and tries to do something. And there is a public organization—ours is at least an organized structure—and it’s easier for us to put pressure on these state bodies, and we try to do that as best we can. S. BUNTMAN – So in effect, you’re lobbyists for the public. A. NAVALNY – Yes, that’s exactly right. S. BUNTMAN – All right, here’s a question from Katerina: “How do you explain that the Committee for the Protection of Muscovites appears only for rallies and PR? Why is its effectiveness so low?” A. NAVALNY – I can say that, in fact, I tell all initiative groups this: your number one helper is the mass media. In my experience, the most effective way to improve something and really change the situation is to create a public scandal of some kind. That’s what these people are afraid of. They’re not afraid of your inquiries, and they’re not afraid that you’ll sue them—they’re absolutely not afraid of that. The first thing they’ll tell you is: go ahead, sue us. But when you hold a rally and invite the media, then your district head or prefect really does get scared, starts making calls, says let’s talk—and they hate that. So yes, we very often organize such events, and I repeat: in my experience, it’s very effective. S. BUNTMAN – Questions are coming in on the pager, 961-33-33 for subscriber “ECHO OF MOSCOW.” Olga asks about the phenomenon of reconstructing and renovating five-story brick apartment buildings: what is it, and will residents return to their homes? How widespread is the renovation and reconstruction of five-story buildings right now? A. NAVALNY – At the moment it’s still just an experiment, but I think it will move, so to speak, to an industrial scale. Reconstruction and renovation are, in principle, a good thing, in my view. There are a great many five-story buildings from the second and third periods of Soviet industrial housing construction that are perfectly sound. S. BUNTMAN – So not the kind assembled from panels, right? A. NAVALNY – Yes, not the kind that will fall apart in five years, but perfectly normal buildings. But of course their elevators are outdated, all the pipes are outdated, and something has to be done about them. So there are two options. S. BUNTMAN – Are there five-story buildings with elevators? Because the earliest panel ones didn’t have elevators at all. A. NAVALNY – Well, some do. There are different building series. But in any case, the infrastructure of these buildings is completely outdated and needs to be replaced. So there are two options: reconstruction/renovation and adding extra floors, either with residents temporarily relocated or without relocation. Right now, as far as I know, a fairly successful experiment took place in the Southern District of the capital, where repairs were done without relocating residents. As I understand it, people are satisfied, and I think it’s a good option. In that sense, the city is moving in the right direction. S. BUNTMAN – I see. Another issue: construction standards. To what extent do they exist, and to what extent are distances between buildings, noise standards, and so on actually observed? Alexander asks specifically about sanitary standards concerning the distance between buildings. A. NAVALNY – As for the laws: in Moscow, our laws are at a good European level. We have excellent laws. Unfortunately, they simply aren’t followed. If we complied with the entire legal framework, there would be no conflicts at all. As for the distance between buildings, I can’t give a simple answer because it depends on the number of floors and so on. But there is a basic rule. If something is being built near you, the side-to-side distance should be no less than 20 meters, and the front-to-front distance no less than 50 meters—if that makes sense to radio listeners. S. BUNTMAN – Right: when buildings stand side by side, no less than 20 meters, and when it’s window-to-window, facade-to-facade, then no less than 50. A. NAVALNY – But all this is very individual. It depends on the height of the buildings and various other factors. Still, that’s the basic standard. Take the sanitary regulations—SanPiN—and look it up there. If you can’t make sense of it, come to us with a specific case, and we’ll look at it and tell you. S. BUNTMAN – Boris writes to us about the Krasnopresnensky Prospekt you mentioned: “You said Krasnopresnensky Prospekt has been under construction for a year without an Emergency Situations Ministry review. Who will bear responsibility for a new Transvaal?” writes Boris. A. NAVALNY – That’s absolutely correct: it really is being built without an Emergency Situations Ministry review, and I have personally seen a huge number of letters, including from ministry officials, to state authorities saying that this is, for example, a high-risk terrorism target and that there are numerous violations there. I myself filed a complaint with the antimonopoly service over the fact that the client functions for this enormously expensive project were simply handed over to the organizers instead of being put out to tender. Nevertheless, Krasnopresnensky Prospekt and the residents who live there are one of the hot spots. There have genuinely been rallies there with 2,000 to 3,000 people, but even so, no positive shift has been achieved at all. S. BUNTMAN – Speaking of positive shifts, Galina thanks you for supporting the residents’ initiative to defend Sheremetyevsky Square. Did you really provide that kind of support? A. NAVALNY – Yes, we did, and we still are. Construction there was halted. Unfortunately, I’m afraid the conflict has already been going on for more than two years, and we’ve been actively involved in it. We help as much as we can, but I want to note that we can really help—and help effectively—only those initiative groups that do something themselves. We never come to a site and do everything for the residents. There, in Maryina Roshcha— S. BUNTMAN – In Maryina Roshcha, yes. A. NAVALNY – Yes, in Maryina Roshcha, sorry, around Sheremetyevsky Square, there are even two or three initiative groups that are very active and have sufficient legal knowledge. We simply provide them with a bit of institutional support, as much as we can. S. BUNTMAN – Ms. Pavlova writes to us about a specific case on Vavilov Street, where the only playground was demolished and trees were cut down—the need to preserve both small parks and playgrounds. By the way, in that same Shchukino district, when developers—those same companies—equipped playgrounds by agreement, that was perfectly normal; several were built, and as far as I know they still function well. Is there a standard requiring that, in addition to distances between buildings, playgrounds must be preserved and must exist in some form? A. NAVALNY – Naturally. There are infrastructure standards in general: for a certain number of residents there must be a certain number of clinics, kindergartens, schools, and also playgrounds, benches, and so on. In principle, the standards exist. You can’t just build houses in an empty field. People have to live normally. After all, this is the 21st century, not the 17th, when you could just throw up houses any old way. In new residential districts these standards are observed, and a sufficient amount of infrastructure is built. The problem is that, as you understand, a sports ground, a playground, or just a little square doesn’t generate money. But if it’s located, say, in the center—or not even in the center—it may be worth several million dollars, because the land is worth that much. So if you build some administrative building or apartment block there, you can make a very nice profit, as they say. So these infrastructure facilities are often simply taken over for construction. S. BUNTMAN – Well, that too is something people can and must protest if it violates standards and laws, rather than immediately assuming it’s a hopeless situation and that whatever they want will be done anyway. Here’s another example: the Sokol district in Moscow, where all sorts of giant buildings are growing up—you can see them from many kilometers away. Konstantin asks: “What new idea have they come up with on Alabyan Street next to the Monomakh complex?” A. NAVALNY – The one being built by Barkli, where there was recently that scandalous collapse. The situation was indeed outrageous. Residents came to our committee more than a year ago. They appealed to every authority, and everywhere they complained that excavation work was being carried out in violation of regulations and that this would lead to a cave-in and threaten the foundation of their building. They received replies from all the authorities assuring them that there were absolutely no problems. And then last month there really was a collapse there. People had to evacuate their apartments in the middle of the night. A huge scandal broke out, and of course all the inspection bodies came. But I want to say that the matter was hushed up and blamed on some old pipe that burst, supposedly causing this huge— S. BUNTMAN – Was there an investigation, or what? Because all these papers and assurances can be filed away, tied up with shoelaces in a folder, and taken somewhere— A. NAVALNY – A supervisory body is called in, it comes, conducts an inspection, and then simply hands residents a completed report. The report says that due to a burst pipe, some kind of subsidence occurred, and so on. But you can’t verify it, you see. One hand washes the other here. The construction complex is a single system: those who build and those who inspect how things are built effectively work in the same place. So it would be naive to expect them to conduct a truly impartial review. S. BUNTMAN – We have two minutes until the news, then we’ll take phone questions. I wanted to ask Alexei this: local self-government reform—will it do nothing, help, or hinder? Because everything we’re talking about now is also a problem of self-government and self-organization. A. NAVALNY – Absolutely right. It won’t help at all, because unfortunately the law on local self-government, despite protests from absolutely everyone except United Russia, contains one wonderful phrase: self-government in the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg is assigned to the jurisdiction of Moscow and St. Petersburg themselves. In St. Petersburg there are still some beginnings of it. In Moscow, local self-government has simply been strangled by the city charter; it doesn’t exist, and it has no real ability to influence the situation. We have many cases where local deputies openly oppose construction in a particular place, but everyone ignores their opinion, and they can decide nothing. S. BUNTMAN – Plus budget distribution. It’s a double-edged sword here—or even a many-edged one—there are budget problems, as in the whole administrative reform of governance across Russia, incidentally. So we’re going to run into many things, not just Law 122 from the beginning of this year; we’ll run into many more “Law 122s.” A. NAVALNY – Undoubtedly. S. BUNTMAN – Alexei Navalny. You’ll be able to ask questions by phone after the news and commercials in five minutes. S. BUNTMAN – We continue our conversation. Alexei Navalny, executive secretary of the Committee for the Protection of Muscovites. During the break, while the news was on, a report came in that a water park under construction in St. Petersburg had collapsed. A. NAVALNY – And that’s exactly what all these endless little departures from the letter of the law lead to. A unique project—so let’s approve the standards as construction proceeds. Let’s start building and coordinate everything at the same time. Fortunately, such things don’t happen very often, but when they do happen, they happen precisely because of this sort of thing. Skyscrapers are being built now, right? My program today was devoted to that. The Federation Tower is being built, but there are no high-rise construction standards. I have no doubt they’ll build a fine, excellent skyscraper—there’s a renowned architect involved and so on. But the fact remains: there are no high-rise construction standards. In other words, the skyscraper is being built in the absence of such standards. It is being built in stages, and those standards are also being approved in stages. On the one hand, yes, it’s a unique project, so let’s step outside the law a little, no big deal. But on the other hand, that still carries risks. S. BUNTMAN – We have to be sure that this unique project is being built with everything taken into account: soil, geology, wind—anything you can think of—materials, their strength, elasticity, and so on. So I can answer the person who says: “Well, Shchukino has been built up with high-rises, and there’s no Bin Laden for them.” Our listeners are very kind, of course, Alexander. I understand everything, but there’s nothing wrong with that, by the way—not for the skyline, and not for the fact that people moved into those fairly tall towers, including people from five-story buildings. A. NAVALNY – High-rise construction should exist. It’s a wonderful thing. And it’s natural. We can’t have a two-story Moscow. S. BUNTMAN – And it saves land. Thank God they’re not putting them in central Moscow. A. NAVALNY – It just all has to comply with the law. That’s all. Nothing more is needed. Nothing special. S. BUNTMAN – One last pager question for the moment, because it opens a new topic for us, and then we’ll move mainly to phone calls at 203-19-22. “Please comment on the reorganization of the state environmental review process. A year ago we stopped construction on the bank of the Ramenka River near our homes. Now activity has resumed. Tatyana.” A. NAVALNY – You know, all these reorganizations are nonsense. The people are all the same. A great many initiative groups fighting against construction placed big hopes in the federal environmental review, because the Moscow one is corrupt and bad, while the federal one would be wonderful and would ban everything at once. S. BUNTMAN – And? A. NAVALNY – And it banned nothing. Some of these scandalous construction projects that really were stopped because they lacked a federal environmental review are now starting up again. They get the review. So until there is oversight over the people making these decisions, nothing will change. Canceling any construction project means multimillion-dollar losses for developers. Accordingly, developers can quite easily sacrifice, say, $200,000 to avoid multimillion-dollar losses. So I’m not inclined to assign any particular significance to these reorganizations. The people are the same. S. BUNTMAN – Sergey writes to us about high-rise buildings and standards: “Are the standards used for tall buildings really not applicable when constructing buildings like the Foreign Ministry building or the Ostankino Tower?” A. NAVALNY – No, of course not. First of all, the Ostankino Tower is a completely separate matter. It’s not a residential building, not even an office building. As for the Stalin-era high-rises, Moscow State University, the Foreign Ministry, and so on—those are not skyscrapers, of course. We’re sitting right now in your large tall building on New Arbat. But that, of course, is not a skyscraper. A skyscraper is a completely different kind of technological object. For the Federation Tower they made only the concrete foundation slab—and it’s the largest in Europe. So the standards are completely different, completely different. They must be developed, and they must be followed. S. BUNTMAN – And you know, Bin Laden aside, the structural features of the World Trade Center towers in New York were subjected to such analysis and criticism that no one will ever build like that again. A. NAVALNY – They were made of steel structures. Our builders, meanwhile, are very proud that all our skyscrapers will be built of reinforced concrete, so if something hits one of them—God forbid—nothing there can melt, and the tower cannot collapse. S. BUNTMAN – The countless projects being developed in Manhattan now have been modified a great deal; many things are being taken into account. All right, now 203-19-22. Leonid Stepanovich, of course, will give the contact details, and Alexei Navalny will tell us how to get in touch with the Committee for the Protection of Muscovites. But for now, please, 203-19-22. We’re listening. Hello, good afternoon. LISTENER – Hello? S. BUNTMAN – Yes, good afternoon. What’s your name? LISTENER – Good afternoon. This is Lyudmila Mikhailovna speaking. You know, there’s this problem. The Konkovo district—you know it, right? A. NAVALNY – Yes, we know that district. LISTENER – Right there between the buildings in the center of the neighborhood, practically under the nose of the children’s playground and hockey rink, they’re planning to build a multi-level parking garage. Residents are protesting, but so far all they get are bureaucratic brush-offs, nothing more. And literally in the same district, maybe a hundred or a hundred and fifty meters away, they’re planning to demolish a residential building and a shopping complex and build a hotel on the site. S. BUNTMAN – I see, thank you. A whole complex of problems. Thank you. A. NAVALNY – As for garages, that’s a very delicate issue, because garage construction does need to happen. We need to build underground garages and multi-level parking structures, because right now all the cars are parked on lawns, in those shell garages, and so on. And you need to understand that the people parking in that garage complex will be your own neighbors. Of course, under no circumstances should all this be built at the expense of demolishing a sports ground or dismantling a playground. I can say that no one has approached us about this site; I haven’t even heard of it. Come to us, and we’ll look at the standards and see whether all this complies. If it’s being built in a courtyard, then it’s вполне possible it doesn’t meet some standards, and we’ll try to exert some pressure in this matter. S. BUNTMAN – It may comply, but there’s still a whole set of problems here. You see, when they demolish a shopping center that had stores and a playground, and replace it with a useful thing like parking and perhaps a useful thing for the city like a hotel—how does the replacement and fulfillment, roughly speaking, of social functions for the district happen? Because there’s a redistribution of social functions taking place. A. NAVALNY – Of course. The biggest problem of all is that these city development plans—naturally, the master plan can’t be coordinated with every individual Muscovite—but district development plans are supposed to be discussed, to go through some stages of approval by district residents, and only then be approved. So yes, the problem is that people may be satisfied with a certain number of stores; they may not need a hotel, or they might prefer something else. And it’s entirely possible that this other facility would also be a profitable investment and worth building—but none of this is discussed at all. S. BUNTMAN – There’s also this habit of not even trying to prove to residents that even the most wonderful things are needed. A. NAVALNY – They’re simply presented with a fait accompli, that’s all. S. BUNTMAN – Yes, and that distorts perhaps even the meaning of what is being built—sometimes sensibly and usefully. The whole situation once surrounding Patriarch’s Ponds showed that very clearly. It showed that this is necessary, first of all because there’s a snobbish approach. Residents ask: “There’s a snobbish approach. The idea is this: if we ask residents about everything, they’ll oppose everything.” But you know, it seems to me this all has to be a dialogue. A. NAVALNY – You see, otherwise it all loses meaning. This is being built for residents, for city residents, for us. If all decisions are made by investors or especially clever architects, then why do we even matter? Especially since, if their brainstorming actually produced some kind of garden city, a wonderful and super-convenient city—well, that’s not what’s happening so far, so maybe it would be worth asking people. S. BUNTMAN – Of course. Starting with aesthetic things like monuments and plaques, and ending with vital things like stores, shopping centers, parking lots, playgrounds—anything at all. A simple little example: in Vilnius there’s a bridge with postwar figures on it—soldiers, workers, peasants—these socialist statues. The city authorities wanted simply to remove them. Who needs them now, after independence and the break with the Soviet past? Residents said: “No need. They’ve been standing there, let them stand. They’re not dictators or politicians.” A. NAVALNY – Part of the familiar cityscape. S. BUNTMAN – Exactly. They stand there, we’re used to them, let them stand, they don’t ask for food; on the contrary, they just show soldiers defending, workers working, peasants reaping and plowing—so what? Bronze figures standing there. To me that seems like a normal, calm approach. They thought it over and decided not to demolish anything. All right, moving on, 203-19-22. Hello, we’re listening. LISTENER – My name is Natalya. S. BUNTMAN – Yes, Natalya. LISTENER – Please tell me, what will happen to the nine-story Khrushchev-era buildings? S. BUNTMAN – I see, Khrushchev-era and immediately post-Khrushchev-era ones. Thank you. A. NAVALNY – At the moment there is only one example. In the Taganskaya area, several nine-story buildings were demolished— S. BUNTMAN – Nine-story, yes. A. NAVALNY – Yes, sorry, nine-story buildings, and new housing was built in their place. As far as I know, the construction complex has no plans in the near future to demolish nine-story buildings. It’s not profitable from an investment standpoint. I can even give an example. We’re trying to resettle and demolish several so-called phenol buildings—they’re nine stories high. We haven’t been very successful, because it’s impossible to force any investors to do it: it’s simply unprofitable. If it were profitable to demolish them, they would have started demolishing them already. But in reality, it just isn’t profitable. S. BUNTMAN – And there are different kinds, after all. As you say, there are phenol buildings, there are all sorts of concrete panel buildings, and there are also brick nine-story buildings from the 1960s and early 1970s. They’re all very different, and even if it were highly profitable, you’d still need to think twenty times before doing it. A. NAVALNY – Of course. At the moment, the main motive behind any movement in the construction complex is financial gain. There’s nothing terrible about that, but that’s how it is. So once again: demolishing nine-story buildings is unprofitable, and that is precisely why they won’t be demolished in the near future. S. BUNTMAN – Another topic, raised here by Andrei: industrial enterprises and their relocation—enterprises that end up right in the middle of residential neighborhoods, and the more construction goes up around them, the closer they become. Like here, at 19 Chernyakhovsky Street, Andrei writes. Relocation of enterprises, repurposing, and so on—what stage are these processes at? A. NAVALNY – There is a Moscow government program to relocate, first of all, harmful and dangerous enterprises, and in general to move enterprises outside the city limits. At the same time, there is also this view—often voiced by the mayor of Moscow—that Moscow is an industrial city and should remain an industrial center, so we won’t move enterprises out. That’s rather strange, given that the biggest enterprises—ZIL, AZLK, the Tushino Machine-Building Plant—haven’t really been operating for a long time, they produce nothing, they just lease out space, and who knows what goes on there. This is similar to the nine-story building issue. If an enterprise is in the center and not especially large, it can be moved, and it is moved. Enterprises that are less profitable to relocate, or that require colossal investment, move only with difficulty. For example, the Committee for the Protection of Muscovites is running a campaign to force the city at least to consider relocating the Moscow Oil Refinery, because it is sheer madness that in a city of ten million people, within the city limits and in immediate proximity to residential areas, there is an oil refinery. But it’s not happening. Nothing. The issue is not even being considered, despite the fact that we bring in environmentalists and specialists prove that it can be done. Even so, the issue is not being considered. I think enterprises will gradually be relocated, but infrastructure is the key issue. You can’t just move a factory and put it in an empty field in the Moscow region. You need to bring in electricity, sewage, and all of that costs colossal sums. What lies underground often costs as much as, or even more than, what stands above ground. So again, it all comes down to money. If it’s profitable to relocate an enterprise, it will be relocated. S. BUNTMAN – I see. No, my dear anonymous friend, I wasn’t talking about people from five-story buildings being moved into Scarlet Sails—that refers to the Northwestern District. No, Scarlet Sails is Scarlet Sails, with its own problems and charms and lack of charms. The point is that there are nearby buildings, quite substantial ones, large and tall, where people from five-story buildings were resettled. A. NAVALNY – I can confirm that. Even though I am, after all, an opponent of Don-Stroy, it is true that some of the relocated residents are moved into high-rise buildings. S. BUNTMAN – Yes, there are perfectly comfortable buildings there, and quite pleasant ones. So here, it seems to me, one has to work case by case, and that is much more correct—to draw out either a positive or a negative trend from specific cases. Otherwise it just becomes protest for its own sake. A. NAVALNY – Protest for protest’s sake. S. BUNTMAN – Yes. 203-19-22. Hello, we’re listening. LISTENER – My name is Tatyana Konstantinovna. S. BUNTMAN – Yes, we’re listening. LISTENER – I live near Rechnoy Vokzal. Here we have a store being reconstructed; our nine-story residential building is above it, and below and around us this so-called reconstruction is going on. It has already blocked off all the space it possibly could. But my question is different. On Echo of Moscow radio you often report that cheap iron and steel structures are coming from Ukraine, from Chernobyl, and that they’re radioactive. S. BUNTMAN – Ah, mostly rebar. LISTENER – Yes, rebar. It’s cheap, so builders buy it. Are any measures actually being taken? Is there any ban or anything of that kind in this area? S. BUNTMAN – I see, thank you very much for the question. A. NAVALNY – We work actively with various environmentalists, so I know a little about this problem. Environmental organizations are indeed lobbying right now to make all imported metal entering the country undergo radiological inspection. There has been some movement in that direction, and I think they may indeed succeed in forcing the supervisory authorities to inspect imported metal. Yes, there is a shortage of metal, so in principle I can вполне believe that some portion of this radioactive metal made its way to Moscow, although I doubt it happened on any large scale or that it is a mass phenomenon. S. BUNTMAN – First of all, and second, what is the level of radioactivity in this rebar, how was it checked, and how serious is it really for people’s health? A. NAVALNY – In general, any building materials used by contractors are supposed to have quality certificates. How properly those are actually issued is, of course, hard to judge. In the overall situation, I would say this is normally handled. And in Moscow, by the way, the quality of building materials is monitored more or less. So I doubt we would find many cases where it is really giving off radiation above the maximum permissible level. S. BUNTMAN – Yes, perhaps this is more likely with lower-budget construction and not in Moscow. A. NAVALNY – Yes, in the Moscow region or, more likely, in other regions of Russia, because in Moscow there is at least some oversight. S. BUNTMAN – Let’s return to transport for these final minutes, because some questions have piled up. First: “What is the fate of the bus terminal at Shchyolkovskaya?” asks Vasily. That’s long-distance transport. A. NAVALNY – As far as I’ve heard, there were plans to move it outside Moscow, but that remained at the level of an idea, because a significant number of people opposed it. It’s right next to the metro: you come out, get on a bus, and go somewhere like Nizhny Novgorod. But if it’s moved to the Moscow region, it’s unclear how Muscovites would get to that bus terminal. So I don’t think it will be moved in the near future. It may be reorganized in some way. To be honest, I don’t know this issue in detail, but I don’t think it will be relocated any time soon. S. BUNTMAN – Next. There was a question here about the metro’s long-term unfinished construction and the non-use of the Circular Railway. There is a plan, and little by little something is beginning to move forward, albeit with difficulty. I had the heads of Metro construction and the Metro itself here, and they said it will gradually be completed. How familiar are you with the reality of this? A. NAVALNY – I know there isn’t enough money, and that the federal authorities—whereas раньше there was a 50/50 scheme, with 50% of the money from Moscow and 50% from the federation—now the federal government is fulfilling less than 10% of its obligations. So there’s no money for building new metro lines, unfortunately. As for the non-use of railway land, there is now a fairly interesting project to build, first of all, garages over these right-of-way lands, and even over stations and tracks. This is now being worked out, and if it proves attractive to investors, the project may be implemented. At any rate, the mayor of Moscow has issued such an instruction, and investment programs are now being developed. S. BUNTMAN – Well then, Alexei Navalny, executive secretary of the Committee for the Protection of Muscovites. Alexei, tell us how people can get in touch with you and try to resolve their issues with your help. A. NAVALNY – Yes, at the end of every program I say that people can write to me at Echo’s email address, marked “For Navalny.” That’s echo@echo.msk.ru. The phone number of the Committee for the Protection of Muscovites is 780-30-14. S. BUNTMAN – 780-30-14. Good. I’ll ask our assistants—perhaps there were some very specific and very important matters that I couldn’t turn into a general question, and so they remained off-air, but they should not remain outside Alexei Navalny’s field of attention. A. NAVALNY – Yes, if anyone left their contact details in pager messages, along with some site we aren’t yet working on, we will definitely get in touch. S. BUNTMAN – In any case, the site coordinates are all here. Thank you, Alexei. Thank you very much. A. NAVALNY – Thank you.
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