"It is scary to live in this piece of wood"

On July 15, an old wooden house, located in the historical part of the city, caught fire in Tomsk - on Krasnoarmeyskaya Street. For Tomsk, such fires in the very center of the city have long ceased to be news. Everyone knows that the more expensive the land under the architectural monument, the more often "spontaneous combustions" occur there.

Ten years ago, Dmitry Fomin also lived in an old house, a monument of wooden architecture, in the very center of Tomsk, from where he moved to a sleeping microdistrict on the outskirts of the city. Now Dmitry has to get to work for an hour, but he feels safe.

If they set fire, we will get through the window of the second floor, jumping on the boards folded below

- We lived in a wooden house on Lenin Avenue, the apartment is on the second floor, the staircase is old, you go along it and think that you will fail. But even this is not the worst. At that time, we already had two children, and every day we seriously worked out with them a “evacuation plan,” recalls Dmitry Fomin. - 10-15 years ago, old houses in prestigious places were burned indiscriminately. So we decided: if we set fire to - we will get through the window of the second floor, jumping to the boards folded below, if the staircase fails - just the same, and if the walls begin to pour, we need to go down through the main entrance. I remember how tourists (including foreign ones) walked past our house, who were touched by a “wood”, around which flowers grow and there are swings, and no one could even imagine how scary it was to live in this “piece of wood”. We waited resettlement, now we live in a panel high -rise building on the outskirts and sleep calmly!

For wooden Tomsk, fires have always been a common occurrence. The city was burning in the nineteenth century and continues to burn in the twenty -first. Most of the so -called Tomsk "wood" is now an "dysfunctional fund" that is not representing architectural and historical value. However, the earth under them is of great interest for developers. 700 houses in Tomsk are officially recognized as the "Monuments of Wooden Architecture", which need protection (in 1992, this list included 1300 houses). Both ordinary "wood" and the unique buildings preserved in the city continue to burn and collapse.

At the same time, the wooden architecture of the 19th century has always been considered the "pearl" and the pride of Tomsk.

It is no accident that it was in the ancient estate of the merchant Golovanov that Vladimir Putin received Angel Merkel during the Russian-German summit in Tomsk in 2006.

In 2010, Materials about the world attractions that need to be seen until they disappeared were published in the journal Forbs. The whole paragraph of the article is dedicated to Tomsk:

"Before the construction boom of the 2000s, the historical center of Tomsk and the Tatar Sloboda, it is also a" stain ", remained by the reserves of untouched modern and the Russian style. With the beginning of the construction paper, the developers found that there was a tragically small land in the center, and the old wood, for their happiness, was burning well. By the middle of the decade it became obvious that the city was still late. Today in the city is still in the city. There are several hundred architectural monuments, but how many of them will survive the Tomsk construction boom is unknown, ”Forbes wrote

Back in 2008, in Tomsk, after long disputes, the authorities adopted a program for preserving wooden architecture, which protects not only the monuments houses, but also the buildings of background development. Then it was announced that "the authorities of Tomsk allocate 70 million rubles for the repair and restoration of objects of wooden architecture." With this money it was possible to restore ... nine historical buildings.

In 2012, Tomsk Governor Sergei Zhvachkin forbade to allocate land on the site of burnt wooden houses for the construction of housing, administrative buildings and trade facilities. Instead, Sergey Zhvachkin proposed organizing recreational zones, children's or sports grounds there. In order for developers to become unprofitable to set fire to wooden architectural monuments. Six years have passed, but no examples of the fact that a miracle park with swings and carousels suddenly appeared on the site of a burned house, in Tomsk, during this time, it was not recorded. And wooden houses continue to burn and collapse.

Only in recent months, a whole series of emergency with old houses occurred in the city. On May 11, a non-residential wooden house collapsed along the street of the 5th Army, on July 15 a resettled old wooden two-story house on Krasnoarmeyskaya Street caught fire, and on June 12, a partial collapse of the house, "an object with signs of a cultural heritage recommended for preservation due to the formation of a valuable cultural environment of the city." This building was erected in 1892 and belonged to the merchant Kolotilov, the people were called the "House with Kikimora." The whole Gagarin Street in Tomsk enters the historical security zone, but only a few houses on this street are repaired and preserved.

- On July 12, we urgently evacuated residents of a wooden house along Sverdlov Street. The building was recognized as emergency in 2014, and in 2016 it was supposed to be resettled, but people continued to live there, ”said the rescuer Alexander Novoseltsev . - There were the overlaps between the floors, cracks at the seams went. Residents said that a few days before they began to pour stucco, and in the morning of that day bricks flew from the ceiling, after which the stove collapsed from the second floor to the first, and a large hole formed in the ceiling. In total, we brought 13 people out of the building. The age is different, there are small children. People were shocked, they were shaking. Only a miracle no one was injured!

Live as you want

However, even in houses where ceilings do not fall, and the walls are still standing, it becomes impossible to live.

- I live in a house on Kartashova Street, 2. According to documents, this is an old merchant house of architect Posokhin, there is even a memorial plate on the facade. The house in the very center of Tomsk, in new buildings that are nailed nearby, the cost per square meter reaches 80-100 thousand rubles. That is why they are being built here, poking as necessary, ”says a resident of the house Evgenia Anatolyevna. - Here is a huge nine -story building nearby. When it was built, our entire house went with cracks and began to sag. In 2016, experts went here, checked, measured, confirmed that construction was carried out with violations. It was said that there is a decision of the Tomsk City Duma, which says that buildings can be built no closer than three meters from the border of the site, and there may be at least six meters between residential buildings from the window to the window ... There may be no changes, but we have no changes.

In the two -room apartment of Evgenia, who got her from her grandmother, it is stuffy in the summer, and in winter it is cold. A few years ago, the facade of the house on Kartashov was repaired, and the windows were replaced. The building began to attract tourists who love to act against the backdrop of antiquity, not knowing how difficult and dangerous it is to live in this monument of architecture.

- During the restoration, windows were placed - wooden double -glazed windows, but there is only one frame, and even with the naked eye it is clear that before there were two frames, so the warmth was better preserved. And now it has become cold ... However, we are forbidden to set the second frame. Say, then the view of the house will be unattractive. I’ve been sick a lot for a year, I can’t do repairs, I have to endure. The authorities spoke about the resettlement of the authorities in 2013, but the time passed, and suddenly they told us that the memorial plate is now hanging on the house, they will not be demolished, which means continue to live as you want, ”says Eugene.

- The situation with the house on Kartashov, I think, is just egregious. Firstly, the rules of land use and development are violated there, which attribute to build buildings no closer than three meters from the border of the site, and leave at least six meters between residential buildings from the window to the window. This, by the way, is also spelled out in the Tomsk urban planning policy. Secondly, the rules of fire safety are not taken into account (the wall of the new building adjoins close to a wooden house), and thirdly, if you think about it, even the rules of the Constitution are ignored. After all, such construction is a violation of private property, ”says Maria Bokova, coordinator of the regional public movement to preserve the cultural and historical heritage. - In addition, the house on Kartashov is not just a house, but a merchant estate, a place where the famous architect Posokhin lived, and it must definitely be preserved! But nothing of this by the authorities is taken into account. They stated that during the construction of a nine -story building there were no violations and the residents must decide all the disputes themselves in court. This attitude, I think, is very significant ...

In the general realtor base of Tomsk - several dozen apartments in old houses put up for sale. Some are partially repaired inside, some are invited to buy in a free layout. That is, in fact, only walls.

- The house is at home, but, as a rule, such housing is poorly sold. And even if the facade is restored, and the windows are replaced, there may be “surprises” inside. In many houses, there is still only stove heating, and the toilet and the bathroom are attached by the forces of the residents themselves and are behind the plasterboard partition or behind the curtain. The advantages of wooden houses are their location (as a rule, everyone is in the city center), minuses are their condition, ”says Realtor Svetlana Shevchenko . -In a good way, each such house needs to be examined in detail, and then “treated”: strengthen the walls, remove smells (wooden stairs absorb them especially strongly), strengthen partitions and so on. Residents cannot do this on their own: it is too expensive and even dangerous, because if the house is recognized as historical, everything must be carried out there through approvals with the administration and in compliance with certain rules. In fact, do not even repair, but reconstruction. But there are too many historical houses in Tomsk, and there is too little money, as usual.

"House for one ruble"

The official program for saving the monuments of wooden architecture in the city (" Preservation of wooden architecture of the city of Tomsk " for 2015–2019. "). It includes 701 houses. This is the so -called" List of 701 ". Attempts to reduce this list were made by the authorities and developers constantly, and for many years the Tomsk defenders of wooden architecture went to the streets with protests, protecting the architectural monuments.

“Preservation of at least 701 wooden buildings would be a matter of honor for citizens and for the Tomsk authorities,” say the current chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of the Historical Heritage of the Tomsk administration Nikita Kirsanov back in 2009 . Then he was one of the leaders of Tomsk activists who, in the fight against local authorities and developers, defended architectural monuments. In 2011, Kirsanov was invited to work at the city hall, and the public movement in defense of wooden monuments in Tomsk was gradually calmed down.

According to Nikita Kirsanov, In 2017, only 30 million rubles were allocated from the city budget to preserve the historical wooden heritage with a need of 120-140 million a year. The "salvation" of one wooden house in Tomsk - major repairs from the foundation to the skate of the roof - on average costs from 30 to 50 thousand rubles per square meter. About 10-15 million rubles are required per object. The restoration of especially complicated and expensive objects can do in 25-30 million.

Some houses from "List 701" need to be restored from scratch. In the list of repair and restoration measures approved by the city authorities from 2015 to 2019 ... only 10 houses. Thus, in order to repair, and even more so re -rebuild 700 houses at the budget account, Tomsk will need about 280 years.

- At present, even the minimum needs for annual financing of repair work at wooden architecture facilities are not provided. However, in Tomsk, the project to attract investors "House for 1 ruble" has earned a project - says Nikita Kirsanov . - In 2017-2018, the city transferred ten wooden buildings to investors on the condition that restoration work would be carried out at the expense of tenants.

Under the terms of the “House for one ruble” program, having invested his own funds in the restoration of the historical monument, the tenant receives the right to rent from the city for 49 years a restored house at a price of one symbolic ruble per square meter per year. The program was launched in Russia in 2012, and since then it was possible to find tenants for several old mansions in Moscow and the Moscow Region.

In Tomsk, according to the “ruble per meter” program, the authorities expect to restore not only architectural monuments, but also the so -called “background development” accompanying them, that is, wooden houses that are not recognized as architectural monuments, but without which it is impossible to imagine the integral appearance of the old regions of the city. The authorities promise that the first three houses from the “List-701” will be restored under the “ruble per meter” program in 2018.

However, in the summer of this year, none of the eight architectural monuments put up for auction under the program "House for the ruble" was interested in investors. According to the publication vtomske.ru, "five of the eight houses have been exhibited from December last year, an object on Lermontov Street-from the end of 2016, and buildings on the streets of Maxim Gorky and October-from the spring of this year."

Against this background, a volunteer movement unfolds in the city for the salvation of the monuments of wooden architecture. This is the Tomsk Soerfest project. In the group of the project "Vontakt" there are already more than two hundred participants.

Error Rendering VK.

Last year, volunteers, with the approval of experts, were engaged in the restoration of the facade of the building on Dzerzhinsky Street, built 120 years ago. Now the platbands are restored by the old estate on Voikova Street.

-I decided to take part in this project, because I personally want to somehow preserve our wooden architecture, and now in my power to do at least something in this sense. In addition, it is nice to know that your work will remain for many years, and, passing by the wooden house later, and I and my loved ones will be able to admire them, ”says Volunteer Irina Vershinina .