Translated material
Overnight under the stars
Moscow's budget hotel construction program fails
The capital will have to wait for now with affordable and inexpensive hotels. It seems that they will not appear in Moscow in the coming years, despite promises from the mayor’s office and even a special program launched by the city government. The City Chamber of Control and Accounts recently conducted an audit of the implementation of this project and found that at the beginning of 2002, only three of the seven stages of work had been completed. Budget funds allocated in 2001 for the development of concepts and business plans for the construction of a network of new hotels in the amount of 1 million 810 thousand rubles were used ineffectively. This was announced at the last meeting of the budget and financial commission of the Moscow City Duma.Let us recall that back in 2000, Yuri Luzhkov decided to build a chain of three-star hotels in the city in order to make Moscow accessible, including for middle-class guests. After all, most of the hotels remaining from Soviet times have long been refurbished and have become more expensive, while new ones are being built exclusively for wealthy clients. Together with the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan, the Moscow government selected about 170 sites on which construction could be carried out. It was assumed that three-star hotels would be located not only in residential areas, but also in the city center. As Deputy Chairman of the Moscow City Duma Mikhail Vyshegorodtsev told a correspondent of the Vremya Novostei newspaper, the project stalled precisely on the land issue: the city distributed plots among developers, but they were used incorrectly. “Plots are allocated, but then they are not developed,” says Mikhail Vyshegorodtsev. - Either it turns out that the site is not suitable for the construction of a hotel, or it has already been transferred for housing construction. And as a result, not a single hotel has been built yet.”
The failure of the hotel project will apparently be discussed at a meeting of the capital's government on April 1. Deputies hope that Mayor Yuri Luzhkov will scold all the heads of organizations involved in the program there. Moreover, Mr. Vyshegorodtsev believes that the anger of the capital’s mayor can be used for peaceful purposes. Already today, officials, anticipating trouble, are urgently trying to save the “three-star” idea. In any case, the Research and Design Institute of the General Plan assures that by the meeting at the mayor’s office they will have time to make the first trial version of the new general layout of hotels.