Dual position in the absence of personalities

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The talk that in a city like St. Petersburg, the chief architect should be elected, have special powers and be the right hand of the governor, has been put to rest. Instead of the role of the right hand, it is proposed to be content with the functions of the third leg. The “godfather” of the author of Gazprom’s corn, Yuri Mityurev, has been appointed the new chief architect of St. Petersburg. But he will only get part of the powers that Alexander Viktorov had - the chair of the head of the KGA was ordered to be ceded to a lady, the ex-chairman of the Committee on Land Resources and Land Management, Yulia Kiseleva, who has nothing to do with either urban planning or architecture

One of the recognized masterpieces of the architect Mityurev: the Van Vitelli residential complex on the site of a demolished 19th-century house by the architect Ludwig Fontana on Vasilyevsky Island

Burned out of its own accord
There has been talk for a long time about the resignation of the head of the Committee on Urban Planning and Architecture, the chief architect of St. Petersburg, Alexander Viktorov. Each time such information was refuted, the “rumors” were especially harshly suppressed by Vice-Governor Alexander Vakhmistrov, who last month asserted that Viktorov remained in his post, “the issue has been settled once and for all.” But, as it turned out, not everything in this city is decided by Vakhmistrov. There is also a governor. At the last government meeting, Valentina Matvienko announced the resignation of Alexander Viktorov “at his own urgent request.”
“He was simply burning at work these four years,” said Valentina Matvienko. — Apart from huge words of gratitude, I can’t say anything to Alexander Pavlovich.
Obviously, all other words have already been said before - information about Viktorov’s expected resignation was leaked back in mid-October. Scandals involving “urban planning errors” multiplied and caused resonance far beyond the borders of the Northern capital. There were whispers on the sidelines that the head of the city would have to sacrifice one of the three key figures responsible for this area: Vice-Governor Alexander Vakhmistrov, the chairman of the KGIOP or the KGA. And in the informal sweepstakes of “applicants for relegation” it was Alexander Viktorov who was in the lead - he did not have such powerful support from business sharks as Alexander Vakhmistrov, and was not as close to the first person as Vera Dementyeva (since the mid-1980s, she worked as an assistant to the deputy chairman of the Lensovet Executive Committee, Valentina Matvienko).
It was assumed that they would say goodbye to the chief architect immediately upon completion of work on the Land Use and Development Rules - which, as we see, happened. The government generally approved the presented document, although the governor recognized it as “imperfect” (the question of what, in fact, prevented it, if not from bringing it to perfection, then at least from protecting it from the prerequisites for new urban planning errors contained in it, remained open). And it was at the finish line of accepting PZZ that they hastened to part with one of his parents. And when such a moment is chosen for rotation, this can hardly mean a positive assessment of the work done.
Viktorov’s departure is unlikely to cause regret among both the professional architectural community and cultural heritage defenders. However, there is nothing particularly to be happy about: the resignation of the head of the KGA does not solve any fundamental problems, but the announced future structural changes in this department are causing serious concern.

Managers instead of architects
Having recognized that recently the functions of the KGA have expanded and it has become an influential body of executive power, the governor made a seemingly illogical conclusion about the need “in this regard” to fundamentally change the structure of the KGA (obviously, in order to reduce the aforementioned increased influence and narrow the functions).
From now on, “managerial functions” will be assigned to the chairman of the committee, and his deputy, who is also the chief architect of St. Petersburg, will be engaged in the actual architecture. In other words, urban planning is assigned a kind of auxiliary, almost servicing role. Moreover, in recent years it has been systematically belittled and made increasingly dependent on the building block.
Sergei Sokolov is considered the last “chief professional architect” in the urban planning field in the modern history of St. Petersburg. The further change of persons occupying this post (from Oleg Kharchenko to Alexander Viktorov) can only be considered as a rapid downward movement. Moreover, all these years there has been a qualitative replacement not only of the committee leaders, but also of the entire composition of the KGA, from where strong professionals were consistently “squeezed out”. In this regard, the latest rumors about Viktor Polishchuk’s imminent departure from the committee are no longer surprising. He was allegedly recently offered to move to the position of head of the First Workshop of the Research and Production Center of the General Plan, still occupied by Boris Nikolayevich, which may indirectly indicate the intention to send Boris Nikolayevich to a “well-deserved rest.” As they say, Polishchuk refused such an offer; but, apparently, he will not remain for long in the structure of the KGA.
The specialists of this department, who prefer to remain incognito, evaluate the proposed reforms of the KGA metaphorically:
- Well, how can we relate to this? Imagine if the hospital began to fire surgeons and attending physicians of various profiles, and in their place appointed caretakers, nurses, or even electricians and plumbers... In our case, figuratively speaking, a sales manager is appointed to the position of “chief physician.”
The former head of the Committee on Land Resources, Yulia Kiseleva, was appointed as the new chairman of the KGA, a lady known as a tough manager and a person close to Valentina Matvienko, who persistently pursued the line taken by Smolny to form land plots classified as houses exclusively according to the edge of the foundation (which, we note, conflicts with a number of laws, instructions and urban planning norms that ensure the possibility of including houses and adjacent territories within the boundaries of land plots, “necessary to ensure their normal functioning and maintenance”, i.e. driveways and parking lots, lawns, pedestrian paths, areas of outbuildings, etc.).
Speaking about Kiseleva, people who know her from her work note: “She is not one of those who will tolerate all sorts of intellectual whining and long arguments: what is the correct way to set altitude regulations here, and let’s also check what is best for historical panoramas... She is one of those who will say: we don’t need the best, we need it on Thursday!”

And these are reviews from enthusiastic admirers of the work of the new chief architect

A real punishment
For Yuri Mityurev, whose candidacy was proposed by the governor for the post of chief architect, this is already his second attempt to occupy this position. In 2004, when the chief architect was still being chosen (then between nine applicants), Yuri Mityurev was unanimously supported by the St. Petersburg Union of Architects and the Association of House Builders and Building Materials Manufacturers, headed by the son of Vice-Governor Yuri Molchanov. But he lost to Alexander Viktorov (considered the creation of the president of the St. Petersburg banking house Vladimir Kogan and vice-governor Mikhail Oseevsky).
The main advantage of the newly minted architect No. 1 was formulated by colleagues in the journalistic workshop several years ago: “he knows his way around the corridors of Smolny well.” This, I think, decided the matter. For assessments of the professional qualities of the architect Yuri Mityurev are far from even satisfactory. Critic Mikhail Zolotonosov characterizes Mityurev as “who gained fame for his projects of warehouses and factories on the periphery of the city (flat parallelepipeds spread over a gigantic area)” and “who erected something incredible in the middle of architectural monuments of federal significance.” The last passage refers to the residential complex on Botkinskaya, built according to the design of Mityurev’s workshop, the only “value” of which was the exploitation of the views opening from the windows of the top floors to Peter’s House, the Kshesinskaya Palace, the Cathedral Mosque and the Church of Sampson the Stranger.
The sale of apartments in another building (a historical building near the arch of the General Staff building, redrawn and built on according to Mityurev’s design) was carried out under the advertising slogan “We are selling views of Palace Square!”
I remember when, at one of the meetings of the Council for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, the content of this advertisement was brought to the attention of the governor, Valentina Ivanovna was very indignant, calling: “Punish them properly!”
And who would have thought that the promised punishment would be appointment to the post of chief architect of St. Petersburg...

Godfather of the author of "corn"
It was Mityurev who was one of the first to break the taboo on intrusion into historical St. Petersburg panoramas: the efforts of Academician Likhachev, who in the mid-90s stopped the implementation of the Peter the Great skyscraper project on Vasilyevsky Island, turned out to be crossed out by Mityurev’s high-rise building on Odoevsky Street, which grew here in the early 2000s. Don’t underestimate Mityurev’s contribution to the transformation of the once reserved Krestovsky Island into a zone of “elite” new buildings - here he marked a nine-story building on Krestovsky, 17.
This founder formulates his fundamental attitude towards the possibility of realizing the creative ambitions of modern architects in the historical center as follows: the city center cannot do without reconstruction and new construction, you just need to know the answer to the main question: “Why is this being done, and who, from an architectural point of view, will implement it?”
Presumably, Mr. Mityurev considers himself one of those who have the right to carry out such undertakings. And, without hesitation, she exercises this right. Erecting an ugly glass block of a residential “elite building” on the territory of the Italian Garden (Liteiny, 59), a monument of the 18th century. Replacing another of his ugly creations with a charming two-story house of the 19th century by the architect Fontaine (10 line V.O, building 17).
Or turning into a business center a monument of federal significance - the Shila House near St. Isaac's Cathedral, one of Dostoevsky's addresses in St. Petersburg. When starting to implement the plans of the foreign customer, Yuri Mityurev lamented: “KGIOP has set strict security requirements.” But he was satisfied with the outcome of his “disputes” with the security department: “as a result, we managed to find an acceptable solution in which we preserved only the outer walls of the building.”
The head of the department of theory and history of architecture at the Repin Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Professor Andrei Punin, does not consider such a solution “acceptable”, but gives the architect who proposed it a “stake.”
“As a result of such a “reconstruction”, one of the last examples of outgoing ordinary classicism in the city, preserved in its authenticity, was completely destroyed - a characteristic St. Petersburg courtyard from the time of Dostoevsky with carriage houses, stables, a hayloft and other outbuildings,” the professor states bitterly.
But the one who deserves to be called an undergrowth considers himself entitled to teach others. And it is not surprising that the students match the teacher. One of them is the author of the notorious Gazprom “corn”, Filipp Nikandrov, who in 1992-1996 worked under the leadership of Mityurev in his architectural workshop, and now, as proof of the “delicate attitude towards the historical fabric of the city” allegedly brought up in him, he loves to cite as an example the work he and Mityurev did together to depersonalize and emasculate the Shiel House.
Obviously, the mentioned ability of the new chief architect to navigate the Smolny corridors allows him to receive very profitable orders for “adapting” the projects of Western architects to the requirements of domestic urban planning and security standards (among the contracts received are such objects as the “Baltic Pearl”, New Holland, and the “Frunzensky” department store).
The adapter from it, we note, is very unique - rather an instructor for bypassing all sorts of unpleasant obstacles for an investor that prevent him from expanding to his full potential in the vastness of old St. Petersburg.
The consequences of Mityurev's complicity in the implementation of the New Holland reconstruction project lead critic Tatyana Moskvina to a sad conclusion:
“That’s it, the student’s nightmare is over, the eternal timidity of C students in front of excellent students. Our guys no longer bow their proud heads to anyone - rest, Chevakinsky, Rossi, Thomas de Thomon and Wallen-Delamot. The real geniuses are coming - Mityurev, Reinberg, Yavein and others. No one knew their names five years ago, but now they had to learn them. Forced! They are now demolishing neighborhoods, attributing their obscenity to the classic novel-city fearlessly. The hands are no longer shackled. Nothing. And now that New Holland has been demolished, there are no taboos left at all. If this is possible, then everything is possible.”
Well, if you can do anything, then get this chief architect of St. Petersburg.
We will not congratulate you on this. Because there is nothing. Poor, poor Peter...

Tatiana LIKHANOVA
Photo by Mikhail MASLENNIKOV