Smooth where needed, wool where needed

At the initiative of film director Alexander Sokurov, a meeting was held between the Governor of St. Petersburg Valentina Matvienko and representatives of the public and the democratic opposition, dedicated to the city’s policy for the preservation of cultural heritage. The public, in addition to Sokurov, was represented by the director of the ECOM Center of Expertise, Alexander Karpov, the deputy chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of the All-Russian Society for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments, Alexander Kononov, and the coordinator of the “Living City” public movement, Yulia Minutina. The opposition is the chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko, Maxim Reznik.

According to the Yabloko website, the meeting discussed ways to prevent the destruction of historical buildings, issues of land surveying, preservation of historical land surveying in the city center, legislative support for the preservation of urban public spaces, problems of the activities of the public town planning council, the practice of government committees on the implementation of current legislation, specific problematic addresses that are examples of law enforcement practice (in particular, the discussion was about how developers circumvent legislative bans on the demolition of houses in the historical center). The construction of the notorious Okhta Center was also mentioned, but it was proposed to return to this topic at the next meeting, which will take place in December. These meetings, as the authorities promised, will become regular. In addition, Yulia Minutina was asked to take the post of deputy chairman of the Administration's Committee on State Control, Use and Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments. Minutina, who works as a school teacher, admitted to Fontanka.Ru that she does not know how to react to this proposal: on the one hand, it would be right to acquire the opportunity to influence urban planning policy (if it is actually obtained in such a position), on the other hand, she does not want to "get dirty."

So, the St. Petersburg authorities are trying to tame loyal social activists and the non-rebellious opposition with one hand (Fontanka.Ru notes that the last time Matvienko met with Yabloko representatives was five years ago), and with the other they are extremely harshly suppressing non-systemic opposition - for example, charges have been brought against representatives of the local branch “The Other Russia” to Andrei Dmitriev, Igor Boykov, Oleg Petrov, Andrei Pesotsky and Alexander Yashin in organizing the activities of the extremist community - we are talking about the meetings they held of former members of the banned NBP (it should be recalled that the ban on the NBP itself was illegal). It is worth remembering the recent inadequate sentence to the leader of the St. Petersburg branch of the Kasyanovsky RNDS, Andrei Pivovarov, who was imprisoned for 29 days for two unauthorized actions at once - however, four days later he was released due to the consideration of his complaint against the decision of the magistrate.