"We don’t dispense alms for the slush": deputies and a gathering of citizens opposed an unnecessary metro line

Lyudmila Butuzova

This is a section of Leninsky Prospekt along which a section of the Kommunarskaya metro line is being laid. More than 50 people, half a dozen police officers, as well as 2 traffic police cars and a paddy wagon followed on the heels of the event, which bore the intriguing name of the "Inspection of the ZHOLTAYA ZHYZHA" ("Inspection of yellow slush"). There are no detainees, no one drowned in the slush, as it froze rather well at minus 8, no one did not fall into unfenced pits, people did not grab the cable hanging everywhere, so the police used the paddy wagon for their own warming, while the inspectors recorded numerous and flagrant safety violations on the disfigured Leninsky Prospekt and its environs.

The background is as follows. In the fall of this year, the Moscow mayor's office began to implement plans for the open-cut construction of a dead-end section of the Kommunarskaya metro line - from st. underground. "Novatorov street" to the station "Sevastopolsky prospect".

The appendix was pushed through contrary to the interests of local residents, who rejected the project at public hearings in April 2019 and ignored the protests of experts who warned that the soil in the area is the most difficult - underground rivers, water lenses and quicksands, in many places at a depth of 30-40 m karst caves. Already now, due to thoughtless building in many places, ground dips are formed and water outflow is disturbed.

In addition, the shallow metro line will run directly under the unique complex of residential 10-13-storey buildings of the 50s by the architect Belopolsky ("Workers of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR - 1010 apartments" housing construction co-operative), Dmitry Ulyanov, 4 - Vavilov, 48. Metro laying technology shallow foundation is the cheapest, but the most risky technology, which involves open pits. The designers did not even conceal the fact that some houses would have to be sacrificed. Many buildings on Leninsky Prospekt will inevitably collapse, and the infrastructure of several districts will be virtually destroyed. It will be impossible to enter or even drive up to the houses - this is already happening during the construction of the metro at the neighbors, on the street. Innovators: Children go to school on the road, ambulances and fire trucks do not have access to homes.

Since spring, protests have not stopped in the areas of the South-West Administrative District, through which the new line should pass. Preparations for the construction of the metro do not stop either. The tunneling has not yet begun, but many sections along Leninsky Prospekt have already been dug for the re-laying of various communications. For the construction of the Akademicheskaya metro station, despite the desperate resistance of residents, a square was cut down on the street. Dmitry Ulyanov, for the improvement of which 700 million rubles were spent before the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and the "yellow goo" flowing out of the ground at the work site became the heroine of numerous memes and photojacks. In the area of houses No. 70-80 on Leninsky Prospekt, WITHOUT approval of the final project, the conclusion of the state examination and the passage of the procedures prescribed by law, dangerous pits arise, bypass roads are laid, and building chaos and unsanitary conditions reign, which have already turned the lives of local residents into hell.

Today's inspection only confirmed this - the prospect lives on a powder keg. And what for?

- For the sake of the interest of developers who have difficulties with selling apartments in Kommunarka, - says the lawyer of the Moscow Front Stanislav Stankevich, - But there are other BENEFICIARIES - who are not responsible for anything, they profit from both customers and contractors, and they receive land for themselves using the proven scheme of "compulsion to admit accidents" followed by forced relocation. It cannot be ruled out that the invented scheme will be extended to all territories where the renovation has not reached or there is no place for infill development. Leninsky Prospect in the South-West Administrative District is exactly the piece that the City Hall would very much like to swallow. This metro is an expansion into our districts, because the districts are expensive, elite and prestigious. In fact, this is a raider takeover. They will build here 40-50-100-storey skyscrapers instead of our low-rise "stalinkas".

Mikhail Blinkin, director of the Institute for Transport Economics and Transport Policy at the Higher School of Economics, fears the same thing. Blinkin lives in the Gagarin district. According to him, residents of the districts of "old Moscow" really have little benefit from the new branch, but the project itself "is needed for the development of the capital". Municipal deputies of the three affected districts support residents, have repeatedly appealed to the Moscow Construction Department with a request to cancel the project of the Kommunarskaya metro line section. The department does not plan to abandon construction.

However, the majority of experts, deputies and politicians continue to insist that the concept of the project of a new metro line is not justified, it is essentially a dead end, does not solve transport problems; repeats the mistakes of the MCC; will lead to the collapse of the "orange" metro line after joining the "Akademicheskaya" station. The most important thing: the metro line is absent in the General Plan of Moscow, but 68.770 billion rubles were illegally allocated in the city budget for its construction.

"This is our money. They take a bite off of those programs that could make our life better, and spend it on completely ruining it, - said Sergey Mitrokhin, summing up the results of today's construction inspection on Leninsky, - We cannot accept the continuation of this illegal construction".

Descending to "slush" demanded that the Moscow government abandon the project of the metro line from the station Novatorov street to the station "Sevastopolsky Prospekt", as contrary to the General Plan of Moscow and violating the interests of residents, and to stop illegal work on the transfer of communications on Leninsky Prospekt.

The corresponding amendment to the budget of the capital, which will be discussed the other day in the Moscow City Duma, was introduced by several deputies from different factions at once. Legislators consider it a criminal waste to allocate such a substantial amount for unnecessary construction in the face of an unprecedented budget deficit in the capital and cuts in social spending during the corona crisis.