Luzhkov of the restoration era
The results of the competition "Restoration-2000" have been summed up
This competition has always been the favorite brainchild of Yuri Luzhkov. This time it was supposed to become the apotheosis of the mayor’s efforts to transform the appearance of the capital. Among the nominees were two main Luzhkov sites - the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and Gostiny Dvor. But no apotheosis happened. On the contrary, the award ceremony left a feeling of some pessimism.

The awards began on an unexpected note. In a well-trained voice, the announcer read: “The winner of the competition for the restoration of Karpova’s house at 41 Bolshaya Ordynka Street, an employee of Intelmas JSC, Alexander Mikhailovich Goirakh, is invited to the stage, posthumously.” Posthumous awards are a common practice, we got used to it, but a posthumous invitation to the stage, even if for the good purpose of honoring the merits of the deceased, was still shocking. The deceased, thank God, did not come out, but the invitation cast a strange color on the whole ceremony.
Yuri Mikhailovich distributed responsibilities as follows: “I will present diplomas, Muzykantsky will give booklets, and Resin will kiss.” One Muzykantsky came out of this story well - he gave everyone a booklet in a cultural manner. Resin laughed in agreement at the mayor’s proposal, but then skimped on the kiss. What is clear: restoration work is usually done by serious, not always shaven, men. But Yuri Mikhailovich himself did not shine.
In the old years, like Yuri Caesar, he knew all his soldiers by sight, but here he was confused and did not know who to give what to. The awardees staged a crowd on stage, and the diploma of the rector of the Donskoy Monastery, Archimandrite Agathodorus, was lost. Interrupting the announcer, the lady from the monument guard began shouting unpleasantly into the microphone: “Attention to those being awarded! Be extremely vigilant and, to avoid being caught, carefully compare your names with those indicated on the diplomas.”
True, at the moment of awarding the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the mayor perked up somewhat. He began to recognize those around him and, contrary to his own orders, instead of Resin, he hugged and kissed the head of the fund for financial support of the construction of the temple, Igor Ptichnikov, and the general director of the Moscow stone processing plant, Vladimir Tkach. But he was immediately surrounded by dozens of awarded artists, realized that you couldn’t kiss everyone, got bored and gave them the diplomas en masse so that they could sort it out themselves. Then the awardees began handing out diplomas to each other, congratulating and kissing each other.
Yuri Mikhailovich’s speech was also unusual. In previous years he was jumping up and down with energy, but here he was thoughtful. He didn’t say a word about the church or Gostiny Dvor. He outlined the main stages of the Moscow restoration in very general terms: “First the task was to master the underground space, then the above-ground space, then we began to move on.” Where?
The main impression that the competition left was that restoration, which previously was a political phenomenon and illustrated the general direction of Luzhkov’s activities, has lost its political significance. It is characteristic that all the figures who play on the field of “artistic hackwork as big politics” did not show up for the award ceremony. The temple was awarded, but Tsereteli was not there. Gostiny Dvor was awarded, but Posokhin was not there. The Grand Kremlin Palace was awarded, but Glazunov was not there. Instead of them there were perhaps significant, but still secondary, bureaucratic people, always hidden in the shadow of these giants. It’s as if from the brilliant times of Catherine we immediately found ourselves in the dull times of Nicholas and the place of the giant Count Potemkin was taken by the boring Baron Kleinmichel.
In the absence of the giants, Luzhkov's special attention was drawn to new nominations in the restoration competition. Which would be natural if it weren’t for the specifics of these nominations. “I especially like,” the mayor said quietly, “that we have a new category related to work in our cemeteries and restoration of gravestones. This is an important part of city life. We need to think more about it.” Such a sad direction of the mayor’s thoughts was not only alarming in itself, but also unpleasantly rhymed with the call to the stage of the late Goirakh. By the way, the winner in the nomination that the mayor liked was “gravestone structures at the burial sites of relatives and acquaintances of A.S. Pushkin.” Their restoration itself should be recognized as, if not a charitable, then a culturally pleasing undertaking, but the wording of the award is unfortunate, because it is a paraphrase of “Rabbit’s relatives and acquaintances” known from childhood.
Yuri Luzhkov moved from tombstones to archaeologists. This is also a new nomination in the competition; Alexander Veksler won it. And although he was awarded not for grave digging, from which, in fact, archeology as a science was born, but for the organization of the archaeological museum on Manezhnaya Square, this award still seemed to be a continuation of the funeral theme. However, this is where the main surprise of the ceremony awaited the audience. “We celebrated the 850th anniversary of Moscow,” said the mayor, “but we were mistaken. As our archaeologists have found out, Moscow is much older. And we are waiting for them to scientifically indicate to us the date of the foundation of Moscow, at the time when people already lived here not individual families, but an urban-type settlement arose. I think that we can count on celebrating the millennium of Moscow in our lifetime."
Luzhkov showed his cards in this matter. A comparison of facts allows us to calculate the date of the emergence of an “urban-type settlement” on the territory of Moscow, even without resorting to expensive archaeological research. Luzhkov's current mayoral term is his second, it ends in 2005, so in the near future it will inevitably become clear that Moscow was founded between the years 1000 and 1005.
In general, a complete change in cultural policy. In vain did the chairman of the Union of Architects, Yuri Gnedovsky, appeal to Yuri Mikhailovich: “You are the only leader in Russia who bases his policy on architecture and urban planning.” After the temple did not bring Luzhkov the presidency, he clearly lost interest in the topic. He has something else on his mind now. It’s good that the tombstones of Pushkin’s relatives and acquaintances were awarded - the ceremony as a whole confirmed the visionary power of thought of our national poet. He correctly pointed out what is the basis of human independence. After everything that happened to Yuri Mikhailovich, he changed his cultural program and is now based on “love for his native ashes” (archeology) and “love for his father’s tombs.”

GRIGORY Kommersant-REVZIN

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 86 dated May 17, 2000, p. 14

Authors:

Grigory Revzin