Moscow is not for the faint of heart. I love this city. But it pains me to see how the people in charge are destroying it. Every few months news comes out about another historic building the government has declared too old to save and needs to be razed to the ground.
As a result, the historic core of Moscow is slowly disappearing.
Few efforts are made to restore and renovate old buildings. When old buildings do receive historic status all too often they are left as they are until they deteriorate and collapse on their own. A recent example of this occurred in the city of Tver, three hours northwest of Moscow. The city’s historic river port which was once the pride and symbol of the city was left abandoned for years with no efforts made to restore it. In late summer 2017 the roof collapsed.
Often this tactic is done on purpose. When a historic building collapses on its own or deteriorates to the point that it is impossible for anyone to use, this then frees up land in the center of the city for developers to come in and build something new.
But sometimes it’s even worse when the government does decide to renovate buildings. Instead of performing a proper restoration and trying to save as much of the old historic appearance as possible, the government does a cheap paint job. They paint over the crumbling exterior and deem that they restored the building. In actual fact, they turned a historic building into a version of Disneyland.
Here is how columns to the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg were recently ‘renovated’. The old stones were simply painted over with white paint, the kind you would use to paint the inside of your house. The stone columns which showcased just how old the building was, were simply covered over.
As a result, the Winter Palace, arguably Russia’s most important and historic building after the Kremlin in Moscow, now looks more like a building you would find in Disneyland as opposed to a historic monument.
Here is how the entrance to the Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg built in 1740 is being ‘renovated.’
Cheap imitation bricks were simply laid over the old bricks that make up the entrance.
So another one of the country’s most famous landmarks now looks no different from a modern day building built with cheap imitation brick.
This isn’t just happening in Saint Petersburg. Here is the most famous building in the Kitai Gorod area of Moscow. The building stood empty and abandoned for many years. Recently the city decided it was time to renovate it in time for the World Cup in June 2018. A proper renovation is a long, complex and expensive process. It can sometimes take several years. In Moscow this took a few months with simply a cheap paint job. Another historic building in Moscow will now look like Disneyland when it’s done.
Worse still is Moscow’s Kremlin. Imagine, the country’s most important symbol. It may be hard to tell from the photo, but the bricks are simply drawn on.
If this is happening to the country’s most famous and important landmarks, imagine what is happening to lesser known buildings around the country.
The short answer is nothing good.
They are massively being torn down by developers. It would not be an understatement to say there is an architectual genocide going on in Russia. All across the country, old buildings that make up the European heritage of Russia are disappearing.
One such example recently came up in the Krasnoselsky Region of Moscow near Sokolniki in the Northeastern part of Moscow on Rusakovskaya Street.
The area in question is a small set of buildings built in the 1920’s. They are examples of Soviet constructivist architecture, a form of modern avant-garde architecture that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920’s and 1930’s. In other words, it is a unique form of Russian architecture that cannot be found in other parts of the world.
Not much constructivist architecture is left in Moscow and Russia. Unfortunately such architecture is not deemed to have historical significance as people tend to assume anything built by the communists had no historic value.
The buildings on Rusakovskaya Street have stood empty for many years. The buildings are being torn down in order to build apartment blocks where residents of Moscow’s controversial renovation program will be moved to.
Since the buildings will in all likelihood be torn down, I decided I would go on a walk and explore the area to take some final photos of these buildings before they disappear into the pages of history forever.
This is Rusakovskaya Street looking in the direction of Sokolniki and away from the city center. Rusakovskaya is one of the few major streets in Moscow where trams continue to operate.
The building on the left is one of the buildings slated for destruction. The building has stood empty for several years. The building on the right still has people living in it and will not be torn down. Despite the fact that both buildings were built by the same architect and are identical and people continue to living in the building on the right, the government says that it is impossible to save the building on the left.
The other two buildings slated for destruction. They have stood covered like that for several months. Both of those buildings are empty and nobody lives in them. These buildings are slated for destruction. They were built in the early 1920’s and are a form of Soviet constructivist architecture. There is still a lot of construvist architecture in Moscow that has been preserved, but these buildings are unique in the fact that they were some of the first buildings built by the Soviets using the new architectural style.
Despite standing abandoned for several years, there are beautiful doors on the empty buildings.
The sidewalk right outside the building. These set of buildings are located just a short walk away from Krasnoselsky Metro Station.
In the 1990’s and 2000’s Moscow built the Third Interchange Road which essentially built a highway cutting through several districts that used to form the outer edges of Moscow’s center. During Soviet times, this highway did not exist.
The courtyard within the apartments. Older apartment buildings in Moscow have courtyards which make the areas a much more attractive for families to live in. The courtyards block the noise from the main road and shield kids from the dangers of moving traffic. They also create mini parks with playgrounds and benches for people allowing people to walk outside and enjoy their neighborhood.
Unfortunately, the buildings around the courtyard on Rusakovskaya are in a terrible state. Nobody has lived here for several years.
Since nobody lives in the buildings, few efforts are made to clear the snow in the winter.
It’s hard to imagine any new construction in Moscow being built with the same amount of trees and a similar courtyard.
The balconies to one of the buildings where in the complex where people still live.
The courtyard even has its own basketball court.
Covers on the trash. This is surprisingly well maintained. Most areas for garbage outside Russian apartments don’t have protection against the rain.
More examples of the buildings inside. This is an example of the infamous “Pyatetashki” or five story buildings that Moscow has decided need to be razed to the ground. All across the city more than a million people will be moved from these buildings which will then be torn down. Whereas in other countries in Western Europe, such buildings are simply renovated, in Moscow they are being torn down.
The entire neighborhood is the ideal place you want to live in Moscow. Buildings that are only five floors high and lots of trees outside on the street.
A beautiful basketball court hidden among trees. In the summer when the leaves are green this are is probably wonderful.
An outdoor workout station.
The playground for kids in front of the building the city authorities want to tear down.
It blows my mind that the city would want to destroy these buildings. Some have argued that the because the building on the left is an identical copy of the building on the right which the city plans to tear down, the architecture will be saved, because at least one building will remain standing and offer a testament to how the buildings looked. But the problem is that the complex as a whole will disappear. The constructivist complex as a whole has historical value, not just the building.
I just can’t imagine how anyone would want to destroy such beautiful buildings. This region is similar to the best apartment buildings you can find in Western Europe, with small buildings just a few stories high, lots of green space and trees.
Another look at the building.
This is the building next to it where people continue to live and which will not be torn down.
The buildings are everything you could ask for in Moscow. Not only is Krasnoselskaya Metro practically in the center of Moscow, you are also just a few tram stops away from Komsomolskaya Metro Station where you you have the Yaroslavsky, Leningradsky and Kazansky Train stations with trains headed north to St. Petersburg, northeast to Yaroslavl and west to Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan.
In other words, you can simply walk to train stations that take you direction to Saint Petersburg from Moscow, which are only a 20 minute walk away.
Rusakovskaya is also one of the streets that still operates trolleybuses, which the city is also unfortunately gradually getting rid of.
And most importantly, there is a tram stop right outside of the building. There are only a few places left in Moscow where you can take a tram, and this region is one of them.
In a recent livejournal post, local activist Alexandra Andreeva summarized the problem of Rusakovskaya in a brilliant post.
“At the moment, three buildings in the Rusakovka housing complex – large multistory buildings, each of which includes several dozens of apartments – have been cleared of their inhabitants and stand empty. And in a few other buildings in Rusakovka there live extremely remarkable citizens. These citizens don’t like the apartments in which they live. And this is of course their own personal matter. Anyone has the right to either like or dislike the place where they live.”
“However, for some unknown reasons, these remarkable citizens believe that instead of their own apartments which they do not like, the city of Moscow should give them ownership of other apartments with more space. On top of that, these new apartments should be built for them using taxpayer’s money. Stranger still, these ridiculous citizens are requiring the government provide them with new free apartments, built on the money of other taxpayers as quick as possible, and also close to where they live now.
The government is destroying these buildings despite the fact that across the street is a beautiful example of how old buildings were renovated properly a few years back. These buildings are three story buildings that are similar to all
