Sociology from the Antichrist

We can’t count how many times we were told about the good (and constantly changing for the better) attitude of St. Petersburg residents towards the Gazprom City tower, also known as the Okhta Center. True, they referred to the data of those sociologists who, to put it mildly, were not tainted by independence from Smolny and Gazprom. Quite the contrary.

However, it was precisely this data that was generously replicated in the administration’s combat leaflets, published in huge circulations, and published in newspapers with the largest audience. This is PR technology under the guise of sociology: when the task is not to find out public opinion, on which the adoption of government decisions will depend, but to justify the decision that has already been made. Tailoring to the answer, in other words. Well, we have not yet seen other sociological data regarding Gasscraper. But now they have finally appeared.
In mid-October, employees of the Research Institute of Integrated Social Research (NIKSI) of the Faculty of Sociology of St. Petersburg State University, under the leadership of Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, Professor Valentin Semenov, conducted a survey of residents about the construction of a 400-meter tower.
The interviews were conducted by telephone; the sample, corresponding to the structure of the city’s population according to socio-demographic indicators, amounted to 1,200 people. What happened?
To the question: “Do you know about the construction of a Gazprom tower in St. Petersburg?” — 75 percent of respondents answered affirmatively, 25 percent answered negatively. At the same time, 80 percent of men and 71 percent of women know about construction.
Further questions were asked only to those who knew about the construction.
To the question: “What is your overall position regarding this construction?” - the citizens answered like this. “For a number of reasons, I am in favor of the construction of a tower in the Okhta area,” answered 13 percent; “for a number of reasons, I am against the construction of a tower in the Okhta area” — 38 percent; “I am not against construction, but only in distant areas, remote from the historical center territories of the city” - 23 percent and 25 percent found it difficult to answer the question.
To the question “do you agree that in the historical part of the city it is impossible to build buildings (structures) higher than the classical St. Petersburg dominants,” 88 percent answered affirmatively, another 6 percent disagreed with this judgment, and another 6 found it difficult to answer.
To the question: “Do you think that a 400-meter tower will spoil the city’s skyline?” — 64 percent answered affirmatively, 17 percent disagreed with this statement, and 18 percent found it difficult to answer.
Further, 64 percent of respondents believe that “the construction of a 400-meter tower on the problematic marshy soils of St. Petersburg is dangerous,” 11 percent disagree with this and 24 percent found it difficult to answer.
Finally, 55 percent of respondents believe that “the construction of a 400-meter tower is an extremely expensive undertaking,” 12 percent disagree with this and 33 percent found it difficult to answer.
Professor Semenov is very skeptical about the above-mentioned survey data that was previously presented to townspeople (for example, data from ASI under the leadership of Roman Mogilevsky), which paints a very benign picture of the townspeople’s attitude towards the Gas Scraper. And he is equally skeptical about the constantly circulated (and publicly used to justify the appointment of the St. Petersburg governor for a second term) data about the unprecedented support of Valentina Matvienko by the townspeople, noting gross methodological errors in the results presented to the public.
What the NICSI survey shows seems much more objective and much more adequate to society’s attitude towards Gasscraper than the data that the sociologists serving Smolny “feed” us. This may be why, according to Valentin Semenov, he encountered difficulties trying to make his results public. Well, some St. Petersburg media were not eager to give him airtime or newspaper space...
Professor Semenov also provided Novaya with an appeal from representatives of the Orthodox community to President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Governor Valentina Matvienko. Besides Semenov, 47 people signed it. Including the former chief artist of the city, Honored Artist of Russia, Professor Ivan Uralov, writer Nikolai Konyaev, Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor Georgy Fursey, Priest Alexey (Moroz), head. Department of the St. Petersburg Institute of Film and Television, Professor Alexander Kazin and others.
The authors of the appeal remind that in recent months in St. Petersburg “public hearings and discussions have been taking place on the problems of the architectural appearance of the city in the present and future,” during which “urban planning and architectural errors and miscalculations have been identified, most often associated with a violation of the existing scale of development and the silhouette of urban views and panoramas of St. Petersburg." “Such errors,” they believe, “accumulating, can disrupt the “strict, harmonious appearance” of St. Petersburg, completely destroy (and are already destroying!) its classical architectural ensemble, which is a world cultural heritage.”
However, they are especially concerned about the prospects for the construction of the 400-meter Okhta Center tower.
“The uncontested desire to change the character of the silhouette of our beautiful lowland city by placing a stylistically and meaningfully alien cyclopean structure in a visually dangerous proximity to its historical center remains completely inexplicable,” they note. — A number of experts are also concerned about the construction of a skyscraper on problematic St. Petersburg soil and on a geological fault. We haven’t forgotten how many years it took to cope with the “quicksand” in the area of ​​the Ploshchad Muzhestva – Lesnaya metro stations. The technical operation of the tower in our northern latitudes promises to be unprofitable and simply ruinous, not to mention the construction itself.”
Finally, they note the “anti-Christian nature of this project.” For “an essentially pagan structure, reminiscent of the notorious Tower of Babel to Orthodox people, should rise above all the largest churches in the city of St. Peter - above St. Isaac’s, Peter and Paul and Smolny Cathedrals (just opposite the latter, which is the Church of the Resurrection of the Word), offending the religious feelings of believers.”
The authors ask the president, prime minister and governor to “take all measures in their power to prevent the construction of a 400-meter architectural monster, which will undoubtedly forever destroy the image of the most beautiful and harmonious city in the world.”
The appeal was sent to all three recipients - no response yet. What will it be like? Or will its authors again be told about “positive changes in the attitude of citizens to the Okhta Center project”?

Boris VISHNEVSKY