Tuchkov mayday

Coincidentally, at the end of last week, on Thursday, it was the 118th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Gumilyov, and on the same day a meeting of the Council for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, chaired by the Governor of St. Petersburg, was held in Smolny. The Federal Law “On Objects of Cultural Heritage of the Peoples of the Russian Federation” and the activities of the Committee for State Control, Use and Protection of Monuments (KGIOP) of the city administration were discussed. And a few days earlier it became known that a number of such objects - including house 17 on Tuchkov Lane, where Gumilyov lived with his first wife, Anna Akhmatova - fell into the zone of new large-scale construction.

Let's defend our native lane!..

On April 15, not far from the Tuchkov Bridge, the enlightened public, city experts, and people’s representatives held a rally for and against: for preserving the historical part of Vasilyevsky Island and against another grandiose construction project. We also read poems by poets of the Silver Age - although in general we are not talking about them.
We are talking about the long-planned creation of a third metro station on the island. Who would doubt that it is necessary? If in Gumilev’s time there were enough trams and cabs (although they say that when the son of two poets, Lev Gumilev, Nikolai Stepanovich and Anna Andreevna, having arrived from Tsarskoe Selo, for some reason walked from the Nikolaevsky station to the maternity hospital on the 18th line... on foot), today Vasilievsky is simply languishing due to the lack of means of transportation. It is especially inconvenient for students and teachers of the University and employees of nearby scientific institutions: they have to use either Nevsky Prospekt or Vasileostrovskaya, which is permanently overloaded - people stand in line for 15 - 20 minutes to enter; and in any case depend on equally overloaded ground transport.
Twenty years ago, the project of constructing the Universitetskaya station on the territory of the State Optical Institute (GOI) and the Academy of Logistics and Transport was widely discussed. Calculations showed that the new transport hub will absorb the main flow of passengers who work or study in this part of the island. But then this option for the development of the metro (which most experts considered very successful) was not implemented. The objections were mainly from the leaders of the State Optical Institute, who, naturally, did not want to lose an inch of their vast lands and explained that the construction would interfere with their scientific activities.
Today the situation has changed: large plots of land and premises of GOI, according to Legislative Assembly deputy Alexey Kovalev, have been sold or leased, scientific research has largely been curtailed. Mr. Kovalev and his like-minded people have repeatedly proposed returning to the consideration of the previous project at a new stage. But instead, recently, without any discussion, it was decided to create a completely different station on the other side of the island, in the area of ​​the Makarov embankment.
To be absolutely precise, this object is positioned not as an independent metro station, but as a second, ground exit from the underground lobby of the Sportivnaya-II station. Although, if you measure the distance on the map, it turns out to be a whole stretch. From “Sportivnaya” to “Sportivnaya” people are proposed to be transported using escalators and a horizontal conveyor.
The attempt to make life easier for scientists and students is considered to be forgotten - the Universitetskaya embankment is even further from here than from Vasileostrovskaya. The prospect of building a tunnel from the Petrograd side, under the Malaya Neva, even to an amateur’s eye seems too complicated and expensive, and the demolition of ancient houses, the destruction of the cultural and historical aura of the island is damage that has no price at all. How justified is the project technically and economically, not to mention the moral aspect?.. There are still many more questions than answers.


We must pay tribute, the project was not completely uncontested: in parallel, options for constructing a ground pavilion directly on the Makarov embankment and on the square near Tuchkov Bridge were considered, but in the end they accepted Tuchkov Lane. True, according to what criteria, whether on a competitive basis, Smolny is silent about this. It is only known that the Sportivnaya lobby will be located in the block between the Syezdovskaya Line and Tuchkov Lane in accordance with... “the decision of a meeting with the participation of the governor.”
- This is the first time I come across such a formulation! - Alexey Kovalev shrugs. - How can such a verdict, so to speak, have legal force? Please note: not a government decree, not the conclusion of an expert commission, but simply - without any approval - “consulted and decided”?!
Responding to a deputy’s request, Governor Valentina Matvienko writes: “According to the feasibility study, the following buildings fall into the construction zone...” And just below: “Currently, JSC Lenmetrogiprotrans is developing a feasibility study for the inclined course of the lobby complex in the approved spot.” The question is: then what justification is mentioned in the first lines of the letter?
According to Kovalev and his associates, never before in the northern capital have such projects been carried out so close to the river bed, because this is, in principle, very labor-intensive and dangerous. And in the area of ​​the Tuchkov Bridge, the soils are so weak and unstable - “with unpredictable behavior” - that when laying an inclined tunnel for escalators, it will be necessary to freeze, according to Kovalev, “two to three times larger volumes of rocks than was required, say, during similar work at the Dostoevskaya and Sadovaya stations.” And in ten years, when all this is unfrozen, irreversible consequences will begin, the station will be declared emergency and will have to be closed.” However, it may not go that far. According to the speakers who spoke at the rally in Tuchkov Lane, the buildings will be quickly demolished, the area will be cleared, and then it will turn out that the idea is unrealizable. In this situation, the land automatically goes to investors. Maybe that's what it's all about?
According to preliminary official data, “only” three houses fall into the collapse zone, but from the position of independent experts, the radius of the “funnel” could be 100 meters or more, and in fact, eight to ten buildings in the district will be affected, including Gumilyov’s penates. The local aborigines announced in advance that we would not leave our homes, even if they showered us with gold. True, they weren’t as broken... By the way, as follows from the letter from the KGIOP, “the committee did not issue permits for the design of the specified construction with the dismantling of cultural heritage objects.” Will this serve as a reliable barrier in the way of bulldozers and excavators? Meanwhile, the meeting of the relevant commission of the Legislative Assembly on the “Tuchkova” problem is scheduled only for mid-May. But time seems to be running out.

Valeria STRELNIKOVA
photo by Nikolay KUKHARSKY

Help "Novaya"
Based on the documents of the KGIOP, houses in Tuchkov Lane, No. 24 - an object of cultural heritage of St. Petersburg and No. 26 - a historical and cultural monument of local significance are subject to “resettlement and dismantling”. And also the building on Syezdovskaya line, 29.