Before our eyes

The St. Petersburg sports and concert complex lies in ruins, and in line the adjacent square, given to residential buildings. Activists intend to stop destruction and achieve the restoration of the building according to the old drawings. “Such things” figured out whether there was a chance to return the lost and avoid new losses

The gray February sky, the wind, a small scene with a pair of microphones, against the background of modern ruins - these are the scenery of a rally against the barbaric destruction of the St. Petersburg SCC, which actually became commemoration of the sports complex.

Pavel Morozov, a design engineer, goes to the microphone, nervous. He did not prepare for the performance, but could not remain silent.

“Before our eyes, the child was killed,” says Pavel. - What is forty years for a unique structure with a centenary margin of strength? This is youth. But he was killed - on the camera, cynical, so that everyone can see who the master is and who dictates his will. "

The consequences of the collapse of the roof of the SKK during the dismantling of the building photo: David Frenkel/Kommersant

He will also tell how at the St. Petersburg State Architectural and Civil Engineering University he studied with Tamara Sergeevna Maxim, who worked in the 1970s as a leading designer of the Leningrad zonal scientific and research institute of experimental design, better known as the LenzniyeP, and as incredibly trembling people who designed the SKK building, belonged to their child.

“And his roof was dismantled how they removed the roof in the agricultural toilet,” Paul could not stand in the end. - They climbed, began to take the battles alternately, expected that the roof would gradually fall. Absolute ignorance of construction mechanics! There was definitely no dismantling project. They drove the crane, gave people a gas cut in their hands and drove forward, in fact to death. As a result, a young guy died. ”

At a rally on February 2, about a thousand people gathered - residents of the district, activists, and defenders of monuments. And in every speech, one word loudly and clearly sounded - “murder”.

"The offspring of the era, to the mother is unlike"

The destruction of the St. Petersburg "Petersburg" most experts evaluates unequivocally - this is an act of vandalism and a crime against the city. Created in the 1970s specifically for the Olympics-80, already during the construction it was considered "the most grandiose in the Soviet Union." According to experts, even the Olympic sports complex in Moscow, the nearest analogue of the SCC is less expressive from an architectural point of view. The reason is in a more “heavy” roof, without openwork cuts, as in St. Petersburg.

View from above to the sports and concert complex named after V.I. Lenin (now SKK "Petersburg") at the Victory Park in Leningrad, 1981 Photo: Oleg Makarov/RIA Novosti

“SCC was a completely unique building for the Brezhnev era,” Olga Kazakova, senior researcher at theory and history of architecture and urban planning, explains. - Then the architecture as a whole gravitated towards monumentality on the verge with heavyness, if not by overweight. Often it became a symbol of the state, which can hardly produce new meanings and images. And the SCC turned out to be a very witty building that contains historical reminiscences, but in Modernist, light, directed upward, creating a tension necessary for the competition. ”

For the late USSR, it was typical to rely on engineering thought than the external beauty of buildings - complex designs often stretched buildings that were not remarkable from the point of view of architecture. SCC was an exception. Its halls could be transformed for fourteen sports and for a variety of spectacular events.

President of the International Olympic Committee Juan Antonio Samararanch during the inspection of the NKC named after V.I. Lenin, July 29, 1985. Photo: Ivan Kurtov/TASS

“This building was very Leningrad,” emphasizes the historian of architecture, director of research by the Institute of Modernism Anna Bronovitskaya. - Modernist, according to materials, structures, the most functional organization, the UCC possessed distinct classic features in the design. But the main feature of the complex was an unsupported overlap of a 160-meter span-a hanging steel membrane stretched between 56 steel supports. ”

The design was fundamentally new for its time. If the steel membrane of the St. Petersburg Sports Palace “Yubileiny” was attached to the cable system, then in the UK it was tightly stretched between the supports without additional support. A thin six -million membrane with an area of ​​about two hectares withstand Petersburg rains and snowfalls easily. The rings to which it was attached “cut through” the roof and created the unique appearance of the complex.

“Created by the engineers of Lenzniyep Yuri Eliseev, Alexei Morozov, Oleg Kurbatov and Grigory Rainus, this design was a huge achievement, the latest technology of his time,” continues Olga Kazakova. “The building was highly appreciated by professionals, and its creators were awarded with state aid.”

Roal of the SCC "Petersburg" Photo: Anton Vaganov/TASS

It was thanks to the membrane overlap in 1988, in the year of the centenary of the Eiffel Tower, KK, together with the giant Norwegian platform for oil production from the bottom of the North Sea, an overpass connecting all the Japanese islands, and the Anglo-French project of the tunnel near the greatest achievements of the twentieth century, compiled by the scientific and technical society France.

Doomed to a remake

By the fall of 2019, “Petersburg” could be called battered, but not broken. In the 90s and 2000s, he did not escape the fate of most sports complexes of the post-Soviet space-concerts, not competitions became the main profile for the building, and a permanent fair was located in the lobby. In the 2010s, the complex became a “non-core and problematic” object for the Ministry of Sports of Russia and would be privatized if the city authorities of St. Petersburg had not grabbed it. True, legally it became the property of the city only in April 2017. Then conversations began on the need to reconstruct the building or about its demolition and construction of a new complex.

The fair under the roof of the St. Petersburg "Petersburg" ceases its work. Tenants leave the square in 2011 Photo: Sergey Vdovin/Interpress/Photoxpress.ru

“Any structure wears out over time, especially if it is not used in a completely proper way,” Anna Bronovitskaya notes. “But this does not mean that SKK could not be repaired.” Even if his membrane was dangerously thinned out, it had to be replaced, it may even be replaced, having previously carefully dismantled. ”

But at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum - 2018, an agreement on the reconstruction of the SCC with the city administration was signed by the president of the SKA hockey club Gennady Timchenko. Despite the efforts of a number of members of the Urban Planning Council of St. Petersburg, HC SKA in every possible way pushed his idea of ​​demolition with subsequent construction on the site of the “St. Petersburg” new, modern arena, completely dissimilar to the SCC.

“From an architectural point of view, new buildings of the building, which involve capacity of up to 20 thousand spectators, are of no interest,” continues Bronovitskaya. “In addition, even the best modern project would not have justified the demolition of an outstanding old structure.”

The proposals for the demolition of the SCC discouraged specialists and city defenders. The destruction of the building seemed impossible, unthinkable.

The layout of the project reconstruction project at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in 2018 Photo: Alexander Nikolaev / Interpress / Photoxpress.ru

“The very idea to replace a unique monument of architecture and engineering, the history and culture of its time with a new vest,” explains Olga Kazakova. - We have already seen such examples in Moscow. One of the most egregious is a military commander, a completely vulgar, fake building, which only remotely resembles a historical building. The same can be said about the interior of the “children's world” architect Alexei Dushkin on Lubyanka. We are waiting for what will happen to the burned building of INION. In the same way, the new SCC in St. Petersburg is a new construction. Even if they try to give him “lines of similarities” with genuine, it only comes out worse. ”

A year ago, the first application was submitted to the Committee for the Protection of Monuments to recognize the complex of the architectural monument. In response, the applicants were refused with reference to the current legislation. The Committee was ready to consider the application only after the forty -year anniversary of the SCC, which was planned in mid -2020. In the early fall of 2019, activists wrote an open letter to the city authorities demanding to preserve the SCC. The first rally was held at the walls of the complex on October 13, but only a hundred people gathered.

At the same time, the Union of Architects and the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture, with the support of deputies of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, got an act of delivery of the complex of December 31, 1979 and tried to challenge the decision of the Committee. As a result, the court ordered repeated appeals to come only after January 31. On this day, “Petersburg” was destroyed, never waiting for a well -deserved recognition.

“Unfortunately, we observe vandalism in relation to architectural monuments everywhere and everywhere,” says Olga Kazakova. “Moreover, this applies to all eras, starting from the destroying temples and ending with the demolition of objects of Soviet modernism, including sports, socially very significant.”

Crime without punishment

General Director of SKA Arena LLC Igor Zabiran Photo: On the video/Andrey Gryaznov/TASS

In parallel with the attempts of activists and city defenders, to recognize the SKK monument to the era of modernism, the authorities of St. Petersburg were preparing a concession agreement on the reconstruction of the building. It was concluded on January 15 with SKA Arena LLC, a microscopic company, the general director and founder of which Igor Zabiran is listed. But before that, back in early December, deputy hearings were held in the Legislative Assembly, which considered the draft upcoming reconstruction.

“Speaking at these hearings, I, like my colleagues, said that the monstrous word“ dismantling ”was recorded in the concession agreement,” Boris Vishnevsky, deputy of the Sachs of St. Petersburg, tells at the rally. - From the very beginning, these investors did not hide that they want to demolish the building of the complex and build another ugly design in its place. We demanded to stop the reconstruction and recognize the project unsuitable, but all this was rejected. The authorities signed a concession agreement and unleashed the investor. ”

During the hearing, along with other deputies, Vishnevsky insisted: if you sign an agreement in the form in which it was taken for discussion, it will be impossible to stop the demolition of the SCC.

“The deputy Alexander Rayudov and I submitted an application for submitting the SCC to the list of cultural heritage objects on December 30. They returned it to us in two weeks and ordered to come after January 31. I am sure: the complex was demolished so that there is no way to submit another application. If the “Petersburg” were recognized as a monument, this status would protect it from demolition. Gentlemen, investors were in a hurry, and therefore violated all possible norms. They had to put all before the fact: the UKC is no more, so there is nothing to protect. Apparently, we thought that we would give our hands and stop fighting. ”

Boris Vishnevsky directly speaks of the illegal demolition of the complex and is responsible for this to the city authorities and personally to the governor Alexander Beglov.

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“Beglov could stop this agreement, could save the SCC. He simply did not do this. So this crime has the organizers, those who created the conditions for the demolition of the complex - the city government, led by the governor, the Committee for the Protection of Monuments, led by the chairman of Makarov. Everyone who looked with wide eyes at how the SKK building is destroyed should be punished, up to the criminal, for what they did. ”

The city authorities actually deny their involvement in the incident, saying that they did not receive any notifications of the start of dismantling and, especially the demolition of the building. It was stated that the concession agreement, the content of which is a commercial secret and is not disclosed, allows investors to carry out any work without coordination with regulatory authorities. That's just the media, starting with Novaya Gazeta, reminds that no contract can be higher than the law, and the Civil Code of the Russian Federation implies the obligation to notify local governments of the demolition of the building.

“The incident on January 31 is a planned operation. Without the knowledge of the governor, committees and regulatory authorities, nothing would have happened, ”said Ksolir Vranks, the leader of the Beautiful Petersburg movement, who nominated his candidacy for the post of governor of the city in the last election. - Unfortunately, we were not lucky. The leadership of our city is barbarians and vandals. ”

The city of Glukhov

Discussions about the status of the SCC with experts in the history of art and architecture were constantly conducted. The absolute deafness of the leadership of St. Petersburg and investors to the professional estimates of the cultural value of the building, unfortunately, can only be explained by their complete disrespect for specialists.

“You can imagine how authoritative the opinion of experts is, if, roughly speaking, a hundred people appeal to the authorities and developers, so that they do not demolish the object, but it is still demolished. It is simply not taken into account, ”explains the art historian Dmitry Kozlov. - The normal situation looks like this: they develop a project for reconstruction or demolition, then it goes to experts, they give their assessment - and the decision is made in accordance with it. But this system simply does not work. ”

Workers in a construction cradle above the building of the St. Petersburg "Petersburg" Photo: Alexander Halperin/RIA Novosti

Dmitry Kozlov notes that today the architectural heritage of the 1970s needs discussion and historical and cultural understanding. But Russia in this matter is actually a zone of silence. Even scientific publications on the architecture of modernism for the most part are not released by us, but in the countries of the former USSR and in Eastern Europe. And in our country, there are still few specialists who can confidently say: we really know and understand the architecture of modernism.

“It would be useful to release once a year in a large monograph about this period, translate them into foreign languages, and arrange regular exhibitions. This could advance science and our understanding, as well as attract the attention of society to the architecture of this period. But if the authorities do not hear us, then even such work is unlikely to help preserve existing monuments. ”

According to the expert, for many years there have been talking about the need to “educate the developer”: to explain to businessmen the value of cultural objects, to instill respect for art and to prove the need to preserve it.

“But almost nothing changes, and developers are only more cunning. The destruction of the SCC is a vivid example of formal compliance with the law. They just beat everyone. Close businessmen are now always trying to ahead of the city -defenders and other guardians of the architectural heritage. ”

Blood in the arena

Matvey Kucherov, the installer who died during the collapse of the SCC, was only 29 years old. Igor Zabiran explained the death of the young man by violation of safety. Simply put, the guy himself is to blame: he would be fastened, he would not have killed. But residents of the city do not believe in such a version of events and the investor does not accept the explanations of the investor.

“The SCC died, and the man died. This is a tragedy, ”says Boris Vishnevsky. - Today the governor claims that the building was dilapidated, complains about safety precautions. The general director of SKA Arena, Mr. Zabiran echoes him in unison, accusing the deceased of violations and claiming that the building would collapse itself. This is all impudent and open lies. A crime was committed before the city and citizens. It should not be forgiven. "

After the destruction of “St. Petersburg”, the writer and journalist Tatyana Moskvina will write for the portal “City 812” the appeal to “Lords of the Subjects”, where he will compare them with the secretaries of the regional committees, against the backdrop of the seemingly good guys. And then he will add: “You shed an innocent blood. And this, we know from Russian history, it just didn’t get away with anyone. Diluted a man! Now this place will be poured with ice, invite you to frolic on the skating rink? "

Battle for the square. Petersburg round

The question of the development of the square around the UKK residential buildings, which were supposed to help the investors recruited 20 billion rubles invested in the reconstruction of the complex, remains to the end.

“We have a square left for which we must fight - 18 hectares of greenery! We are promised a park, only in the drawings we see a parking lot, ”activist Andrei Nakhabtsev addressed the gathered at a rally after the demolition of the SCC. “They will leave us a ring of 5 meters wide around the stadium.” This is how we will have a park. It is necessary to continue to protect your living environment. If we let these people here once, they will no longer be stopped. The demolition of five-story buildings, eviction of us somewhere away and the development of the whole area is the sweet dream of these investors with reduced social responsibility. ”

Андрей Нахабцев во время согласованного митинга около разрушенного СКК «Петербургский» Фото: Роман Пименов/ТАСС

Не находят плюсов в откровенно уплотнительной застройке и эксперты. Основные опасения — увеличившаяся нагрузка на инфраструктуру, сокращение зеленых зон и шумные толпы болельщиков — сделают жизнь в районе некомфортной, а то и опасной.

«Предположим, хорошая звукоизоляция решит проблему с шумом от проходящих внутри здания мероприятий, — рассуждает Анна Броновицкая. — Но заявленные 20 тысяч расходящихся зрителей — это не только шум, это мусор, это угроза конфликтов».

«Не могу найти ни одного плюса, — говорит Ольга Казакова. — Здание строилось как часть единого ансамбля с окружающим его парком и Аллеей Славы. Его замена коммерческой недвижимостью повлияет на район негативно. Помимо прочего, даже если вместо “левого новодела” на месте СКК построят шедевр современной спортивной архитектуры, окружающая застройка будет мешать его восприятию. Такие сооружения не должны стоять среди жилых домов. Так в принципе не делается».

Власти снова остаются глухи к экспертным оценкам ситуации. По крайней мере по заявлениям Смольного, расторгать кассационное соглашение со «СКА Ареной» никто не собирается.

В то же время активисты пытаются защитить не только сквер у СКК, но и множество других памятников и парков Санкт-Петербурга.

«Южно-Приморский, Полежаевский, Удельный, Муринский парки, Чесменский дворец, Пулковская обсерватория и многие другие — всего на карте города более 70 горячих точек, — объяснил Андрей Нахабцев. — То, что сегодня делают власти вместе с инвесторами, — градофашизм, систематическое уничтожение городской среды. Если мы сейчас ее не отстоим, нашим детям придется жить вместо красивого и местами еще зеленого города в убогих каменных резервациях».

Единственный способ борьбы с происходящим активисты видят в митингах и акциях протеста.

Последствия обрушения крыши СКК во время демонтажа здания Фото: Александр Петросян/Коммерсантъ

«Только благодаря таким выступлениям можно как-то воздействовать на людей, принимающих решения, — пояснил Красимир Врански. — Смольный ничего не хочет слышать. Чиновники закрылись там и не общаются с людьми. Они выходят на связь только через ботов в соцсетях и убеждают нас в каких-то глупостях».

Перестроить, нельзя восстановить

Большинство градозащитников требуют восстановления СКК по старым чертежам и установления нулевой высоты строительства во всем квартале. Сейчас они надеются на признание за комплексом статуса объекта культурного наследия, несмотря на разрушение 80 процентов здания.

«Последний раз мы наблюдали такое пренебрежительное отношение к нашему городу, его истории и культуре, когда здесь были фашисты, — говорит активист и координатор группы защитников сквера и СКК во “ВКонтакте” Петр Глебовский. — Они уничтожали здания без оглядки на их культурную ценность. Пушкин, Петергоф — все было разрушено. Но потом эти места восстановили. Можно восстановить и СКК, этот уникальный комплекс!»

Горожане во время согласованного митинга около разрушенного СКК «Петербургский» Фото: Роман Пименов/ТАСС

«Но и этого недостаточно, — полагает Борис Вишневский. — Здание, вернее то, что от него осталось, надо сначала изъять у инвестора, расторгнуть концессионное соглашение, а тех, кто виновен в разрушении СКК, внести в черный список, чтобы они больше никогда ничего не могли построить в этом городе. Пусть убираются вон отсюда!»

Но эксперты настроены менее оптимистично. Понимая эмоции жителей города, они больше склоняются к тому, что бороться за разрушенный комплекс бессмысленно и лучше сосредоточить внимание на сквере.

«Здания больше нет, статус ему не дали — и, очевидно, сделали это намеренно, — говорит Ольга Казакова. — Что теперь защищать? К сожалению, эта битва уже проиграна».

Дмитрий Козлов прямо объясняет, что восстановление СКК не имеет смысла. Придется принять эту потерю и честно ее пережить.

Петербуржцы приходят к зданию бывшего спортивного комплекса Фото: Александр Петросян/Коммерсантъ

«Он был хорош своей аутентичностью, — говорит эксперт. — Если сейчас построить то же самое, но с современной начинкой, получится “китайский” подход. СКК был удивителен сам по себе, таким, каким был сделан, со своей историей. К сожалению, мы его потеряли. Даже если сейчас будут восстанавливать эту уникальную крышу, нет никакой гарантии, что ее сделают так же качественно, как в 70-х. Говоря честно, такое восстановление будет бутафорией и даже издевательством над зданием. Он станет не памятником архитектуры, а памятником архитектуре модернизма».

В итоге в этом матче за сохранение любимого петербуржцами облика СКК, как и окружающего его сквера, счет пока ведет «команда в галстуках», для которой все едино — одним больше, одним меньше, что зданием, что человеком. По словам Дмитрия Козлова, у активистов еще есть шансы отстоять зеленую зону вокруг рухнувшего комплекса, но придется держаться изо всех сил.

Вероятность того, что сквер застроят, очень высока.

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The material uses links to publications of social networks Instagram and Facebook, as well as their names are mentioned. These web resources belong to Meta Platforms Inc. - It is recognized in Russia as an extremist organization and is prohibited.