Travel Notes

Peter Principle?

Plans for the 396-meter-high Gazprom City skyscraper in St. Petersburg, announced a year ago, are still going forward. Public disdain was not assuaged when the project was renamed Okhta Center, and UNESCO has indicated that the city’s historic center will be removed from the World Heritage list if the tower is built. The complex is to be funded equally by the city and Gazprom. 

The latest developments bore the elements of a farce: Gazprom hired Lenfilm extras to voice approval for the project at a public hearing, paying each actor R400 for their efforts. The hirelings made up at least half of the 500 people attending the hearing, the St. Petersburg Times reported.

The skyscraper is actually just part of a larger complex that Gazprom foresees as St. Petersburg’s “new dominant landmark.” The complex will perch on the bank of Okhta river to the east of central St. Petersburg and contain office space for up to 20 thousand Gazprom employees. 

Critics have appealed to the Supreme Court, asking it to declare the skyscraper  illegal, since the city’s height limit is currently 48 meters, and because construction has already begun, despite the fact that the R29.4 billion from state coffers for the project has allegedly been allocated illegally. The appeal failed, and the next step will likely be Strasbourg.

Soviet Disneyland

Perhaps the most Soviet of all places extant in the Russian capital may soon be de-Sovietized. The exhibition complex built in northern Moscow in the 1930s to showcase achievements of the Soviet national economy, VDNKh, (see Russian Life, March/April 2005) has fallen into the merciless developmental crosshairs of Mayor Yury Luzhkov. The mayor is interested in turning the site into a modern exhibition center, and a large modern complex is already being built near the historic, but crumbling, Soviet pavilions.

VDNKh was the city’s playground in Soviet times, complete with a large golden fountain symbolizing the unity of Soviet republics. Every republic had its own pavilion along the main drag and industry-specific pavilions held exhibitions, science conferences, and meetings. In recent years, however, the original purpose of the 70 pavilions has been sidelined as they have been rented out as shops and been allowed to fall into disrepair. 

Magomed Musayev, director of VVTs (the current name of the complex, short for World Exhibition Center) is considering reconstruction options and said he hopes to announce a development plan in 2009, when the park turns 70. The park’s 2.3 square kilometers and 266,000m2 of exhibition space is  daunting, as is the legendary park’s Sovietness, which makes a potential remodel painful for some. The park remains popular as an icon of the Soviet past and tourists visit to see something they cannot see in Luzhkov’s version of central Moscow. A recent popular move: the park has been re-installing retro soda vending machines from the Soviet period.

Cleaning the Metro

While many of Moscow’s metro station names were changed in the 1990s, in a wave of anticommunist sentiment, some feel things did not go far enough. These people now argue that all traces of the Soviet past must be eradicated from the popular public transport system, making it “free of ideology.” 

Over the past year, activists have begun lobbying for a renaming of Voykovskaya station, because Pyotr Voykov, a revolutionary and, later, a party leader, took part in the shooting of the Romanov family.

Other renaming suggestions include shortening “Biblioteka imeni Lenina” to a simple “Biblioteka” and turning “VDNKh” into “Kosmos.” 

City officials are non-committal. There are four Voykova sidestreets in the eponymous neighborhood, home to over four thousand people and several hundred firms. To be consistent, the streets would have to be renamed as well, which would create a paperwork nightmare, a city official told Novaya Izvestiya newspaper.

Smith of Pskov

A traditional smith has set up shop within the Pskov kremlin, offering visitors a look at how metal working was done in medieval times, when the kremlin was built. The smith is a joint project of the Pskov Kremlin Museum and a group of local smiths. They hope to create an ongoing workshop for interested artisans and an exhibition about Pskov’s smithing tradition.

Important Steppe

UNESCO inscribed a large territory in northern Kazakhstan on its World Heritage list. The internationally-recognized site – Saryarka Steppes and Lakes of Northern Kazakhstan – includes the Korgalzhyn and Naurzum nature reserves, which are an important migration stopover and feeding ground for up to 16 million birds, some of them endangered. The 450-hectare area contains half of the region’s biodiversity and is home of the rare saiga antelope (see Russian Life, Sep/Oct 2003). It is the first UNESCO natural site in Central Asia. In the same announcement, UNESCO gave World Heritage status to seven other sites in Canada, France, China, Iceland, Switzerland, Mexico, and Yemen.