IZO

Rating of Moscow's areas by categories (Slon).

Asphalter Katya on the roads in Dnepropetrovsk (via LJ stanis-sadal).

According to the People's Assembly of the Russian Federation, [Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov's] General Plan for Moscow is its "death sentence" (OPRF, in Russian, via LJ maratguelman):

The whole centre of the city becomes a zone for the construction of so-called culture-office centres. It offers no solution to transport problems in the megapolis. Historic buildings are threatened.

Architecture

Architects reject plan for an underground shopping complex at Pushkin Square (Gzt.ru, in Russian).

Moskomnasledie, responsible for Moscow's architectural heritage, plans to allow the construction of underground parking lots beneath historic buildings (gazeta.ru, in Russian).

The razing of the Muromtsev dacha, until a recent fire the home of the Venedikt Erofeev museum, has been completed; according to differing reports either seven or 50 protesters were arrested (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

Kiev's famous Chimera House, build by Vladislav Gorodetsky 1901-3, is suffering from cracking after an extremely cold winter (Lenta.ru, in Russian). So is the Liebeskind holocaust memorial in Berlin (MIGnews, in Russian).

The new Terminal D at Sheremetevo airport: Aeroflot flights to London seem to leave from here now: very shiny.

 

Photos of life in Moscow in the late USSR (tema).

And here's the news:

Kaliningrader claims to have located legendary Amber Room in German WWII bunker (gzt.ru, in Russian).

Architecture etc

Fate of the Wall of Tsoi popular memorial on the Arbat under discussion (gazeta.ru, in Russian).

Is the expanding Shilov Museum a "Trojan Horse" enabling developers to grab prime Moscow real estate (uborshizzza, in Russian)?

Moscow housing blocks painted by Russian and foreign artists in 2007 (neferjournal):

Moscow landmarks under threat: embalmed Lenin; Mayakovskaya metro; Sokol artists' village; VDNKh; Melnikov house. On the Melnikov house: "See it now before it it mysteriously burns down, a commonplace fate for listed buildings." It is a commonplace fate, but that seems sensationalist in this case; the house is 50% owned by senator Sergei Gordeev, who cares about art and architecture, as far as one can tell (Guardian).

Demolition news

Multiple reports on the 6 February meeting to defend Moscow's architectural heritage (igorpodgorny, vanmeetin, moscow-saint, arch-heritage).

Medvedev intervenes in Rechnik dispute (Moscow Times).

Mayor Luzhkov threatens to "liquidate" the Fantasy Island luxury enclave (Kompromat, in Russian).

Inhabitants of the "artists' settlement" at Sokol - a unique collection of detached houses put up in the 1930s, where Alexander Gerasimov, among others, lived - fear their homes will be seized (dolboeb, in Russian).

Before and after WWII

View of 1937 Paris international exhibition (via LJ mrparker).

Remembering Stalingrad (4-e). Stalingrad in 1947, photos from Life (periskop).

Neft daşları/Нефтяные Камни/Oil Stones - the town built in 1949 42 km off the coast of Apsheron, Azerbaijan, to enable drilling for oil in the seabed.

That huge 1990s blue-glass building you see when you come out of Yugo-Zapadnaya metro is uninhabited and falling apart (moya_moskva, in Russian, with photographs).

So far this winter in St Petersburg, eight people have died by falling off roofs when clearing snow and ice (Vkrizis, in Russian). "Anti-icicle man" must be an unbelievably risky profession.

Oligarch news

Igor Kolomoisky has bought the Ukrainian TV channels 1+1 and Kino (Izrus, in Russian).

Dinara Kulibaeva, daughter of Kazakhstan prez Nursultan Nazarbaev, has bought the most expensive villa in Geneva; the seller was a Russian, Rustam Aksenenko (MIGnews, in Russian).

Alexander Mashkevich, head of the Eurasian Jewish Congress, is sponsoring the construction of a Catholic church "in a Muslim country" and of a Russian Orthodox church in the Kazakh capital, Astana (Izrus, in Russian).

Re: Dumbo: 6,000-square-foot triplex at One Main for $25 million — the Clock Tower (NYT).

Q. There were reports that the Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov has been interested.

A. I have no comment on who we’ve shown it to.

A visit to Harbin, which still has some architecture from the time of the Russian "occupation", although much has disappeared in the last twenty years (seattle pi).

Crumbling dachas filter: rotting in St Petersburg (Independent); and the famous Muromtsev Dacha, lately the Venedikt Erofeev Museum, has burnt down near Moscow: "the last wooden house in Tsaritsyno" (Lenta.ru).

Trouble in Hamburg with Richard Florida's "creative class" thesis of gentrification (Spiegel)?

The Moscow authorities insist that in place of the Central House and the Artist a park will be constructed, not flats and offices (gzt.ru, in Russian). The architect of the building, Nikolai Sukoyan, died in late December, aged 89 (gazeta.ru, in Russian).

On the Afghan-inhabited Sevastopol Hotel, Moscow (Winnipeg Free Press) (thanks, MK):

There are at least 200 separate stores within the buildings, selling everything from barber's supplies to figurines of the Buddha. Take Room 701, for example. Here we find dozens of three-dimensional plastic panels with images of baying wolves, prancing stallions, tumbling waterfalls and snarling tigers.

Photos of the destruction of the interior of the iconic Detsky Mir/Children's World store (stanis-sadal).

Oldest communist architect, Oscar Niemeyer, is 102 (AFP). Two years ago prez Putin gave him the Order of Friendship.

Mr Bychkov, head of the Central House of the Artist, wants to take the fight against its destruction (IZO) international (Sophia Kishkovsky/NYT).

Fall-out from the Lame Horse tragedy in Perm: 54 Moscow clubs and eateries may be closed because of fire hazards (RIA Novosti).

Threats to provincial architectural heritage (Guardian):

A report by a panel of Russian and British architects says that the same depressing trends visible in Moscow are being replicated across Russia's "great European cities". The city of Samara on the banks of the Volga is under particular threat. Classic wooden dachas with delicate "fretwork ornament to windows, doors, cornices and gables" are disappearing, says the report. A third of the wooden buildings in the old quarter have been bulldozed in the last seven years.

Surprise decision: despite the popular campaign to save it, PM Putin has signed an order permitting the destruction of the Central House of the Artist (Kommersant, in Russian).

Invitation to an exhibition of Richard Davies's photographs of Russia's fast-disappearing wooden churches, previously shown at the Museum of Architecture in Moscow.

Hommage å Marat Guelman: Russian Povera.

Vardzia (bldgblog):

Originally constructed in the 12th century—in a region inhabited by humans since at least neolithic times—and very much resembling one of the cave-cities of Cappadocia, Vardzia is a spatially fantastic site (and, I'd assume, a videogame level waiting to happen). 

Series of films made about Odessa in the 1930s, text by Izaak Babel.

Photos of Moscow in the 30s by Emlen Knight Davies, daughter of the American ambassador Joseph Davies (varjag-2007). Below: parachute jump (?) in Gorky Park.

Seven abandoned wonders of the USSR (kirey-caustic).

Open letter to Prez Medvedev about the destruction of old Moscow under Mayor Luzhkov (Arkhnadzor, in Russian). Translation below the cut (thanks, NI).

Fire at the Russov House, home of the central pharmacy in Odessa. Via LJ user ovod-ussr, who comments: "This is the way the new Odessa authorities regularly clear space for the construction of the latest euro-shit." My Odessa-based correspondent seems to confirm this analysis in skype conversation: he suggests the house was burnt down by "people who need to put up new buildings with blue windows, as always" and further informs me that the fire station is a whole three minutes' walk away and the fire was fought by a single fire engine.

Kazakhstan stuff:

Italian PM Berlusconi praises the virility of Kazakh men (Telegraph). 

Yep, those men are virile enough for a Russian bride scam at $1-5,000 a time plus military housing benefits (AP). 

Pawel Pawlikowski in praise of Chimkent-born documentary film-maker Sergei Dvortsevoy (Guardian).

Aktau City is a new "energy showcase" metropolis being constructed from scratch in Kazkhstan's western desert (TOL).

Kazakh patriotism is at an all-time high of 90.4% according to the latest poll, up from 53.4% in 2006 (Tsentraziya, in Russian).

Building and construction and destruction news. A new road bridge across the Volga near Saratov has shortened the drive distance from Europe to Asia by 500 kilometres (VM, in Russian). VTB bank will revise the project for the construction of historic Detsky Mir department store because the present project allows for "too much empty space" (ibk, in Russian). Historic buildings are still disappearing in Moscow (VOA).

On the development of the Thomas Krens/Global Cultural Asset Management (GCAM) project for a Jean Nouvel-designed museum in Baku (Artnews):

The contemporary-art museum is one of several museum projects that President Aliyev signed into being with a decree several years ago, among them a museum of independence, a museum of oil, and the renovations of the museum of carpets and the museum of visual arts—all with the strong backing of First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva.

The chief architect of Moscow, Alexander Kuzmin, thinks that not only should the quotation from Sergei Mikhalkov's Stalin-era national anthem be restored to Kurskaya metro station (IZO, earlier), but also the statue of Stalin (Yandex, in Russian).

Stuff from Vladimir Paperny:

Book review: Cold War Confrontations by Jack Masey, Conway Lloyd Morgan (Paperny Times).

American National Exhibition in Moscow 1959 (Paperny Times).

Film about the exhibition:

On doing up a Russian country house (NYT) (thanks, MK). There's one problem with the Russian countryside, imo, and that's the mosquitoes.

70s ceramic mosaic in underpass in Rostov-on-Don (Nemarov Dot Kom, with photos).

Russian-Jewish odds and, er, sods:

Why was visa-free travel between Russia and Israel introduced? Because of the gay lobby (zavtra, in Russian; via dolboeb)!?

Last year the Israeli authorities introduced a visa-free system for tourists from Russia. There are persistent rumours that this historic event occurred because of the joint, co-ordinated efforts of highly-placed Israeli and Russian homosexuals. Now rich and influential Russian sodomites can easily have fun in the best gay clubs of Tel Aviv.

But I bet the traffic is both ways: here's info on a supa-pupa top-secretMoscow gay sex club (Time Out, in Russian).

Visa-free travel-agent? Israeli diplomat Shmuel Polishchuk kicked out of Russia for urging Jews to repatriate to Israel (Pravda, in Russian). Meanwhile PM Netanyahu gives Kremlin list of Russian scientists helping Iran to build a nuclear bomb (Times):

“There has been Russian help. It is not the government, it is individuals (...)” said David Albright, a former weapons inspector who is president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

ПАД СТАЛОМ ВАЛЯЮСЬ И ХОХОЧУ....))))))))) or something.

Ukrainian women's movement Femen demands authorities protect women in Uman, Ukraine, from sexual harassment by Hasidic Jewish pilgrims who consider all women in short skirts to be prostitutes (Izrus, in Russian). (Wikipedia: Uman is famous as the burial site of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. An annual pilgrimage to the Rebbe's gravesite at Rosh Hashana (the Jewish new year) attracts tens of thousands of people from around the world).

Ukrainian local authorities approve hotel in centre of site of Babi Yar killings, to dismay of Jewish groups (BBC) (thanks, MK). Someone told me that over half of Ukraine's parliament is Jewish, so I think this is unlikely to go through. UPDATE: and it hasn't! Kiev's mayor applies veto after protests (Izrus, in Russian).

Architecture

Gazprom Okhta Centre tower in St Petersburg gets city's go-ahead (Daily Mail). 

Important conservation effort: The Moscow Architecture Preservation Society and SAVE Europe’s Heritage invite you to an evening to celebrate the publication of MOSCOW HERITAGE AT CRISIS POINT, THE SECOND EDITION. The presentation will take place at Pushkin House (5A Bloomsbury Square,London, WC1A 2TA) on 29th September 2009 at 6.30pm. 

And Nikolai Sutyaghin's eccentric house, for which he got four years in clink.

Big public protests over Gazprom's plan to erect tallest skyscraper in Europe in St Petersburg (Bloomberg):

Half a dozen of the hundreds of people who attended the meeting today were forcibly removed amid chants of “shame on Gazprom” for seeking to change the city’s zoning laws so work on the 400-meter tower can continue.  “You’re creating an atmosphere of civil war here in St. Petersburg,” said one of the protesters, Gennady Turetsky. “Look at all these security measures, all the people being taken away.”

Gazprom is also Russia's favourite employer (MN).

Screen grab of my house in Moscow on Yandex street view (Yandex, via dolboeb).

No-one knows quite how to get rid of Kerbel's huge 1941 granite statue of Karl Marx from Theatre Square, Moscow. It is made from a single lump of stone that weighs 161 tonnes and the cost of removal is prohibitive (MIGnews, in Russian).

Milton Glaser's tower atop School of Visual Arts' new theatre in NY pays homage to Tatlin (Caslon Projects).

New road construction in Moscow costs much more because of corruption ($380 million per mile as opposed to $9.8 million per mile in Washington)  (Newsday) (thanks, MK). Most everything in Moscow costs more because of corruption; but not that much more.

"Progressives, Fascists, Communists, now what do they all have in common - today?" Well, the answer would appear to be: communist and fascist art "hidden in plain sight" at Rockefeller Plaza. Glenn Beck displays impressive ability for TV show host to sort his Mukhina from his Vuchetich (thanks, MLV).

IZO reader MK III writes re Telman Ismailov (IZO, passim): "Thank you for the update on this fascinating character. Do you perhaps know what is happening with his proposed renovation of the Hotel Ukraina in Moscow?" Well, whether the Ukraine is controlled by Telman or, as Russian news sources report, Zarakh Iliev, one of Telman's rivals, I don't know, but there's this recent press release (Hotel News Resource):

The Rezidor Hotel Group, the Brussels-based hotel management company, announces the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Moscow. A famed city landmark, the former Hotel Ukraina is currently under extensive renovation and scheduled to open December 2009. (...)  The hotel will feature a unique art collection of nearly 1,000 original socialist realism paintings, the "official" artistic movement of the Soviet Union for nearly 60 years. Restored murals and ceiling frescoes throughout hotel public areas compliment the collection and retain the feel of the original Hotel Ukraina.

Meanwhile Azerbaijan celebs Nura Suri and Seimur Zakaryaev are ecstatic over Telman's Mardan Palace Hotel in Turkey (the undertaking that seems to have aroused Vladimir Putin's ire) (1news, in Russian):

Nura: The Mardan Palace is an unbelievable fairy tale! It's not a hotel, it's a kingdom! (...) We socialised with Telman Isamailov, he came up to our table when he found out there were guests from Baku staying at his hotel. Seimur and I were astonished when he came up to our table and and still more pleasantly astonished by his simplicity and energy. (...) I think there is no better hotel in the world! (...) I think the Mardan Palace is not a five-star hotel, it's a seven-star hotel.
Seimur: In the Mardan Palace it's impossible to hear the word "No" in answer to any request.When you raise your hand and summon one of the staff, then not one person comes but several. And they are all smiling! (...) We can't remember the names of all the procedures they offered. A huge room filled with snow impressed me. (...) On the beach they've imported special white sand from Egypt, it doesn't burn your feet when it heats up in the sun.

Sergei Mikhalkov, Stalinist children's poet, author of the "lyrics" of the USSR national anthem, has died (stanis-sadal, in Russian). Meanwhile, words from Mikhalkov's anthem lauding Stalin have been reinstalled at the newly-restored Kurskaya metro station in Moscow, causing controversy (The Smart Set).