Will there be any development in historical St. Petersburg?

On June 18, it became known that Russia proposed to reduce the number of UNESCO-protected sites in St. Petersburg and its environs, among them such pearls as Peterhof, Pavlovsk, Pushkin, Strelna. The cooperative "Lake" now liked them too?

Last year, at the 36th session of the World Heritage Committee, we were given two years to prepare documents clarifying the boundaries and composition of the World Heritage site “The Historic Center of St. Petersburg and Associated Groups of Monuments”. At the same time, a working group with the participation of Russian and international experts prepared and agreed on new borders for the historical centers of St. Petersburg and Kronstadt. These two documents were to be presented at the 37th session of the World Heritage Committee, which opened on June 16 in Cambodia. But together with them a table was sent there, which was not agreed with anyone and was not considered by anyone. Compared to the current list of protected objects, a number of components have disappeared from it: for example, it used to say “the historical center of Pushkin and palace and park ensembles”, and now only “palace and park ensembles”.

As it turned out, this table was sent to Moscow back in January of this year by some employee of the city Committee for State Control, Use and Protection of Monuments (KGIOP), without even informing his leadership. In the Ministry of Culture, and then in the Foreign Ministry, all this was stamped, as they always do: they don’t have their own specialists, they don’t understand anything about this. And at the output, we got that this table is the official position of the Russian Federation.

The price of the question: will there be development in these territories? After all, these towns around St. Petersburg are a whole agglomeration. It is subject to state protection, because the connection between architecture and nature must be preserved in the form in which Peter the Great conceived it all. From the very beginning, everything was put in its place: St. Petersburg lies in the Neva delta, and around on the hills there are satellite cities and direct roads go to them. In Pushkin, for example, you can stand on the main street and see the city in the lowland. And if we build up the territories between St. Petersburg and these objects, then a dull space with skyscrapers will immediately appear and the whole effect will be lost.

Over the past year, we have built 2 million square meters in the area of ​​the Ring Road. m of housing from St. Petersburg and 2.5 million from the Leningrad region. Such a “ghetto” is being built there for sale. Therefore, the appearance of this list is no coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence.