Fixed match in arbitration

Last Wednesday, the St. Petersburg Arbitration Court ended the trial in the case of Okhta Center vs. KGIOP, which Novaya talked about several times. The court canceled the order of the security department of December 22, 2010 and thereby - omitting details - again declared the majority of the monuments of Cape Okhtinsky non-existent. The territory on which the Landskrona fortress was located, the ditches and bastions of the Nyenschanz fortress, the Novgorod fortification and Neolithic settlements have been removed from protection - now nothing prevents the monuments from being bulldozed and the site being built up. Which, in fact, is what Okhta Center was trying to achieve. The court's decision, alas, was expected - city defenders from the very beginning called this process a “fixed match.” As in football, collusion is difficult to prove - but it becomes obvious when you watch the game...

Giveaway Gambit
Let us recall the background: on August 21, 2009, Deputy Chairman of the KGIOP Alexey Razumov, by his order, reduced the protected area of ​​the cultural heritage site on Cape Okhtinsky. The very area where the Gazprom tower was going to be built was removed from security.
Urban defenders Andrei Vorontsov and Pavel Shapchits challenged Razumov’s order in the Kuibyshev court. And when it became clear that KGIOP was losing, the head of the committee, Vera Dementyeva, by her order dated December 22, 2010, canceled the order - after which the court dismissed the case.
Then it seemed that the cancellation of Razumov’s order was connected only with the desire of the KGIOP not to lose the trial. But in March 2011, Okhta Center appealed to the Arbitration Court, demanding that Dementieva’s order be canceled in order to again reduce the protected borders!
Urban defenders immediately declared that developers and officials were playing on the same team, seeking in such a clever way to remove archaeological encumbrances from Cape Okhta. After all, if the Kuibyshev court had canceled Razumov’s order, no one would have been able to remove the monuments from protection again. And since the case was dismissed, to legally “clean up” the territory it is enough to cancel the canceling order of December 22. Some sue, while others, without trying too hard, lose it. After which they throw up their hands and declare: well, you see, there is nothing to protect in this territory! Our court is independent and judges according to law and justice...
The fact that the “match” between the Okhta Center and the KGIOP was truly contractual was already convinced by the fact that the KGIOP categorically refused to provide city defenders with even the text of the Okhta Center’s statement for review. And during the trial, representatives of the Okhta Center and KGIOP unanimously opposed the inclusion in the process as third parties of Andrei Vorontsov and Pavel Shapchits, and then of Lyudmila Semykina, a member of the presidium of the St. Petersburg branch of VOOPIiK. The logic was clear: city defenders, not being involved in the process, cannot get acquainted with the case materials and argue with the Okhta Center unless KGIOP is zealous in this...

Such a convenient mistake
In court it turned out that Dementieva’s order was prepared on a surprisingly shaky basis. Its preamble contained a reference to the information available to KGIOP about the “results of security and rescue archaeological research” of Natalya Solovyova’s expedition. However, in court, the committee’s lawyers admitted that they did not have (and still do not have) the results of Solovyova’s research. At the same time, KGIOP had a scientific report of Peter Sorokin’s expedition - on December 3, 2010, it was approved by the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. If Dementieva’s order had been based on Sorokin’s conclusions, it would not have been able to be overturned in court. But for some reason she referred to Solovyova - which gave the Arbitration Court an excellent reason to take the side of the Okhta Center.
In fact, the fact that Solovyova’s excavations were completed is not scientific information that allows us to adjust the boundaries of a cultural heritage site. And somehow it’s hard to believe that KGIOP made an accidental mistake here, and did not carry out a premeditated combination...
“Now the owner of a land plot can at any time bring earth-moving equipment onto the territory and begin the economic development of Cape Okhtinsky,” says the famous archaeologist, Doctor of Historical Sciences Sergei Beletsky. “That is, the destruction of unique objects of cultural (archaeological) heritage, which KGIOP for a number of years not only does not want to put under protection, but is trying with all its might to declare non-existent.” “They have everything according to plan. Now they can quickly demolish everything,” Pyotr Sorokin continues his thought.
KGIOP has not yet commented on the decision of the Arbitration Court. And they have not yet said whether it will be appealed. “A decision on this will be made after we receive the court ruling in its final form, with a reasoning part,” the committee’s press service told Novaya.
Well, city defenders, not relying on the diligence of KGIOP, are already acting independently. An open appeal to the Governor of St. Petersburg Georgy Poltavchenko was posted on the Internet portal “Demokrator” (http://democrator.ru/problem/5459). It sets out the history of the issue and contains a request for a “long overdue personnel decision” - the resignation of Vera Dementieva, Alexey Razumov and KGIOP employees Konstantin Plotkin and Grigory Filin, who are directly involved in the situation with fraud around the borders of the cultural heritage site on Cape Okhtinsky.

Boris VISHNEVSKY
Photo by Mikhail MASLENNIKOV