"Even if I have to sit, I will stay here"

"Citizen Pushkin" - Alexander Belyaev about what it means to be alive, at large, in sound reason

Radio Liberty continues a series of essays about the Russians who make the life of many of their compatriots at least a little better. Alexander Belyaev-the one with whom the “citizen Pushkin” is primarily associated-an organization that arose after 2011 in the city of Pushkin, which for some time formally became the district of St. Petersburg. It all started with speeches for honest elections, then activists joined in the fight against illegal and thoughtless buildings and privatization of historical places, stood up for the ecology. Not in all these fights, "citizen Pushkin" defeated the authorities, but continues to fight. 26-year-old Alexander Belyaev-great-grandson of a convinced communist, son and like-minded protested parents. According to him, disagreements with them arose only when it came to possible emigration. “Even if they start a criminal case against me, I’ll stay here. I’d better sit, but here,” Alexander Belyaev said Radio Liberty to the Radio.

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The coordinator of the Public Organization "Citizen Pushkin" Alexander Belyaev came to a civil protest against the backdrop of rallies for fair elections in 2011-2012. Like many Russians outraged by falsifications in the last Duma elections, he worked as an observer at polling stations, went to street promotions and at the same time composed rap on acute social and political topics. Many participants in rallies then woke up the desire to change something for the best on their own.

And so we appeared, so charged, angry after the election

Alexander Belyaev and his like -minded people managed to use protest energy to solve specific local problems. In 2012, public activists of the city of Pushkin (Leningrad Region) made a ban on the placement of a golf club in the Babolovsky park. Then there was a struggle for the conservation of regularly sunbathing and smoking the entire Pushkin district of the Volkhonskaya garbage dump. Now the organization "Citizen Pushkin" is fighting with the project of the construction of the satellite city of Yuzhny, which can cause significant harm to the ecology of the Tsarskoye village and Pavlovsky Park.

Rap "for apple" and rallies for honest elections

Alexander Belyaev is 26 years old, and looking at his cheerful young face, you somehow think that life is a struggle. In fact, Sasha, who grew up in a wonderful quiet Pushkin near St. Petersburg, in a prosperous family, the son of intelligent parents, the writer of music, the owner of many friends and acquaintances, does not make the impressions of a stubborn fighter in courts and rallies. Meanwhile, his name is associated with a serious confrontation of Pushkin’s inhabitants with developers who intend to erect a south city near him, cutting down the forest for this and destroying the Kondakopshinsky swamp.

The path of Alexander at first seems completely simple and ordinary: a cloudless childhood, a wonderful family. Prior to perestroika, communist beliefs prevailed in it. But when information appeared about repressions, executions, political views changed: the family became quite democratic, a skepticism appeared in relation to the current government.

“We always voted for the“ apple ”, the father always respected Yavlinsky very much,” says Alexander Belyaev. - "America is our enemy" is not for us. I am generally very surprised by the persistent anti -American sentiments of many people, as if they think about America every minute of their lives, although it would be more logical to think about their country.

Alexander Belyaev at a rally for fair elections

Since 2007, Alexander went to vote on the polls with his family - all for the same "Yabloko". And he even campaigned a little for this party, telling people about an alternative program for the development of the country. But Alexander himself does not consist of any party, moreover, he believes that they are all in today's situation.

When rallies began against fakes in the elections at the end of 2011, the Alexander family went to protest in full force, Alexander even performed at one of the rallies. On the one hand, this was the first public performance, on the other hand, he often had to go on stage, he gained this experience thanks to his 500th school with an aesthetic bias. In grades 9-10, Alexander was carried away by electronic music and soon began to compose himself:

Even if they start a criminal case against me, I still won’t go anywhere, and even if I have to sit, I will stay here

-A friend planted me on Drama-n-Bace, I even sent my compositions on the radio, cooked in this whole subculture, then moved to another musical direction. At school, we sang a duet with one girl, I used my brother’s poems, we performed at competitions, we had a short time even something like our rock band. Then, one of the friends in this group was carried away by ramp and the British musical direction - Graim. I generally noticed that I am always starting to engage in something unmasive, and when I cool, it becomes popular. Sometimes I’m joking that if I stop going to protest, here everything will become politically active and conscious citizens.

Alexander Belyaev believes that the dynamics and aggression of rap, performances in clubs with concerts in a sense formed the style of his public speaking on civilian actions. In general, the fascination with music and various artistic projects for him was advantageously combined with political activity. On December 4, 2011, Alexander managed to put his song on the network in support of Yabloko: "I began to directly burst from a sense of injustice, from the fact that I saw with my own eyes, the bribery of voters from" United Russia "and much more."

Therefore, it is natural that on May 6, 2012, Alexander was in Moscow, in Bolotnaya Square. For himself, he considers to participate very important in the movement "Observers of St. Petersburg" , which appeared after the December elections of 2011. It was from the association of local observers that the organization “Citizen Pushkin” grew up, which Alexander was essentially headed, although formally there are no leaders there. In his opinion, “citizen Pushkin” is the same observers, just not related to the elections. These are people living in a certain place - a city, a area that united to solve their local problems.

Charged and enraged against "sleeping bags"

According to Alexander Belyaev, his parents always wanted him and his brother to receive a good technical education and leave west. But he does not plan to leave his homeland, even in case of criminal prosecution:

-It seems to me that we are always closer to us, and even if some riots begin here, I won’t go anywhere from this bed, as in the song of the Beloner group. Even if they start a criminal case against me, I won’t go anywhere, and even if I have to sit, I will stay here.

Defenders of the Babolovsky Park

Alexander is tied not so much to Russia as to his native Pushkin - he simply does not imagine in which other city on earth could move. But in the last decade, the St. Petersburg government terribly harms the city and environs. In the wake of protests of 2011-2012, Alexander and his comrades in the observer community united to solve the problems of the Pushkin Babolovsky Park.

-We worked as observers during the presidential election in March 2012, and then this protest energy had to be somewhere, in some areas it was simply blown away, people parted, not knowing what to do next, where to direct the awakened desire to change something for the better. And we immediately took place in the local municipal council meeting in the Babolovsky park, about the golf club, which we wanted to place there, bite off half the park. And so we appeared, such charged, angry after the elections, when the officials in the administration constantly snapped at us, all sorts of nasty things were said about us-that we are "Prokhorovsky" or some other, and we were just "local"!

Babolovsky Park managed to recapture. Moreover, with the help of specialists from the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Monuments and some Deputies, most of the park managed to transfer to the State Museum-Reserve Tsarskoye Selo. True, the struggle for the last piece of the park, which can disappear under cottage development, is still ongoing. But when the park was saved in general, the activity of people was won - until 2013, when the Volkhon landfill caught fire, smoking the entire area. New people from among the active citizens of Pushkin pulled up to fight the landfill. Initially, it was an association of voters of the Pushkin district, then a civil association, and then Alexander Belyaev proposed to name the project "Citizen Pushkin" - it was an allusion to the project "Citizen Poet" and an indication that this association of citizens of a particular place - the city of Pushkin. Citizens who love their city.

It was these citizens who entered into an unequal struggle with businessmen and authorities who intended to build a south city city between Pushkin and Gatchina. To implement this project, the company "Start Development" founded by Zakhar Smushkin gathered. The city should be erected on the Kondakopshin swamp, from which two rivers flow - Kuzminka and Popovka. Kuzminka is the only source for the water system of the parks of Tsarskoye Selo, Popovka is the tributary of the Slavyanka River, which forms a unique landscape of the Pavlovsk Park. This tributary is not the only one, but without it the Slav, and so in recent years heavily grinded, can completely dry out in the summer. Previously, the Tsarskoye Selo parks, like the whole city of Pushkin, also had a unique Taitsky water plant, a miracle of technology and also a subject of protection, but it is destroyed, and now local residents insist on its restoration. But if a southern, planned road denouement will be built right along the water conduit, burying it completely. From 130 to 200 thousand people should settle in the South, which will become an excessive load on the roads and infrastructure of Pushkin, since the newcomers will use Pushkin clinics, a hospital, kindergartens and schools.

Activists of "Citizen Pushkin"

Residents of the city of Pushkin and the village of Kondakopshino are also outraged by the fact that the developers want to destroy their only forest - the one that grew up on the Kondakopshinsky swamp. For the sake of this forest, silence, wildlife, many residents of Kondakopshino once moved here, selling urban housing. True, until recently, officials stubbornly did not want to admit that both the Kondakopshinsky forest and the swamp exist in objective reality: in some miraculously it turned out so that there was neither forest nor a swamp according to the documents. The lion's share of the forces and cunning of the “citizen of Pushkin” went to prove the reality of the forest and swamps that could be seen, visited, touching with his hands, but which were not on paper.

Since you are so greedy and arrogant, since you want to gobble up our entire area, then we will study you from a to me and disassemble the pebbles

“The first departure to the Kondakopshinsky forest was at the end of 2012 with the deputy Oksana Dmitrieva, journalists and city defenders,” says Alexander Belyaev. - I then still understood the problem. But in the spring of 2013 there was a hearing on the general plan, there Pavel Solodov very vividly performed a resident of Kondakopshino. Now he is also with us, in "Citizen Pushkin." Then we talked with Alexander Karpov, director of the Center for Expertise EMC, he is just a teacher of life for us. I am happy to call his name, let the enemies know who we have a colleague. It was he who taught us to understand everything: in the laws, in the general plan, in the PPZ, and now we ourselves are already with a mustache and we can explain all this to others. And gradually we realized that the south is a large -scale problem, that there is a huge number of pitfalls. If at the first hearings they agreed that it was impossible to touch the forest and the swamp, we would calm down and did not get so deep. And so we decided: since you are so greedy and arrogant, since you want to gobble up our entire area, then we will study you from A to me and disassemble the pebbles.

Activists did not just study - they ordered examinations, proved that the rivers flowing from the swamp have water systems of Pavlovsk and Tsarskoye Selo. Having collected the documents, they went to the courts. And they lost them. At first they were refused by the city court, then the Supreme.

Only now, after three years of fierce disputes, St. Petersburg officials began to slowly admit that the swamp and forest that were not applied to their plans still exist in nature. But now officials cannot decide who should bring the swamp into the water register.

Alexander Belyaev at a civil gather

Fighting against the South, activists also solve the problem of a military airfield on the outskirts of Pushkin: construction is planned in its noise -defending zone. And if the airfield is closed, the aircraft repair plant will close with it, and this is 600 jobs. Alexander Belyaev is also outraged by the fact that so far there is no particular project of the South satellite city, that its lobbyists are going to solve the problems of infrastructure at the expense of the budget and that no one has linked at all how the new area would be correlated with existing ones.

- There are simply people who bought up the lands of the Lesnoy tribe, destroyed the existing enterprise. They received a huge land bank, and the legality of their privatization is generally under a big question. But we noticed the main trouble by accident, studying the plans of the Poodyazhsky settlement and cadastral cards. I just gasped: it turns out they privatized 200 hectares of the forest fund and the Slavyanka River, which flows in the Pavlovsk Park, the UNESCO object. And the Black River privatized, and they knew that both of these rivers were in the water register. And at the same time privatized the radio beacon of the military airfield. And all this is now in the hands of an offshore company.

"Citizen Pushkin" turned to the prosecutor’s office, which transferred the material to the Investigative Committee, but the criminal case was not instituted. Belyaev suspects that not least because the head of Karelia, Alexander Khudilinen, signed the papers. But the Arbitration Court nevertheless recognized the whole deal invalid, and this is a great victory of the “citizen of Pushkin”. True, an appeal has already been submitted to this decision.

- I don’t know what chances we have, no one will be shy here. Developers are friends of Dmitry Medvedev. One official was generally fired for helping us by writing the answer that the swamp exists. I don’t know what will happen to the courts, maybe they will buy everyone, but we will defend this site by all means in the interests of the Russian Federation.

Alexander Belyaev at the reception of the vice-governor of St. Petersburg Igor Albina

Alexander Belyaev has already written an appeal to the agricultural expert demanding that the developer be removed from the developer, because these are the land of agricultural recognition, which have not been used for five years, which means that according to the law they are subject to seizure. Belyaeva is outraged that in 2009 the land owner said that he would engage in agriculture and build a cottage village, and instead wants to build multi -storey buildings that contradict the spirit of this place.

The low-rise southern, not destroying the meaning of the suburban zone, perhaps, would have arranged everyone, but no one wants another “sleeping bag”-they surround the little quiet Pushkin ugly anthills, from which, moreover, there are no new roads. "Citizen Pushkin" offers a project to freeze the satellite city.

"We are alive, at large, in sober reason"

In the alleged territory of the construction, the southern activists of the “citizen of Pushkin” discovered the ownerless Battery Memorial “A”, which included the guns of the Aurora cruiser during the Great Patriotic War. The memorial is in private ownership, but according to the documents it is not at all (as that very Kondakopshinsky swamp). Activists believe that the developer will not demolish the memorial, but it is not clear who will take care of him if the land will be transferred from hand to hand. In any case, the law of the memorial is not protected by law. Activists drew attention to this, vice-governor Igor Albin, and now, in order to avoid a public scandal, the memorial is transferred to the city.

There is a memorial to the heroes in Kondakopshin. The owners of the land themselves are already voluntarily transferring it to the city. But behind the memorial there is a military burial that no one had the right to privatize, although for some reason the prosecutor did not interest this fact.

They are trying to convince us: you know, guys, do not twitch, we are already captured here, everything is decided

- The prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg in this regard is a dead zone. The Prosecutor's Office of the Leningrad region is somewhat different, in any case, they are completely different about the privatization of water bodies. They have been talking about the capture of the shores for a long time, but after that I decided to check the rivers of the entire Pushkin district and revealed a black hole: the banks of almost every stream or river are partially privatized, and a whole federal water object, a tributary of the Slavyanka river, was privatized in Kholitsky. And the prosecutor’s office answer: privatization took place before the entry into force of the Water Code.

Now Alexander Belyaev is thinking about the complete inventory of water bodies throughout St. Petersburg. So the struggle with a single project hung different aspects of an incorrectly arranged life: captured rivers, lost monuments, sold cemeteries.

Great -grandfather Alexander Belyaeva Vladimir Nybich

The great -grandfather of Alexander Belyaev for his father, Vladimir Pavlovich Nybich, also fought - in the seventh artillery division of special purpose at the head of the commander in chief. And his great -grandmother, Ekaterina Vasilievna Nybich, was a war veteran, was a physician in the flight part in Murmansk.

-I didn’t really like a story from school, it was always some kind of inanimate for me. But at the right time, the story comes to life in me - in connection with the history of my family, in connection with this memorial of battery "A". I read about him and realized how important such memorials are. These people did not surrender, they were burned alive. I am not one of those who believe that the memory of the Great Patriotic War should now be expected for another two hundred years and make some kind of political show out of it. But every family has its own story, all this should be very personal, although this is the tragedy of the whole country. This should be the day of memory and sorrow, and not a constant dance on the bones. And memorials must also be protected because they have architectural and aesthetic value. By the way, in the Leningrad region, the memorials of the battery "A" have the status of monuments, but in St. Petersburg. Petersburg in this sense is generally some kind of anomalous zone, here all the good simply disappears.

In the near future, Alexander Belyaev is to stand to death so that his native Pushkin is not finally surrounded by sleeping areas. Judging by the activity of the developers, he foresees more than one fight. Alexander believes that the inhabitants themselves have the right to determine what nature their habitat should take, and plans to continue to fight against the development of Pushkin’s parks and squares, illegal landfills, projects that harm the environment. It does not exclude participation in the elections of any level-from municipal to elections to the Legislative Assembly, and someday in the future-even presidential (laughs).

- They are trying to convince us: you know, guys, do not twitch, we have already taken everything here, everything has been decided, and I see that they are actually very greedy, very stupid and not at all creative, but often simply illiterate. But as long as we are alive, at large and in sober reason, we do not care about all the friends of Medvedev, on all Smushkin: this is our area, this is our city, this is our country.