Laris Bravitskaya, actress, scriptwriter, writer
Located not far from the Kitay-Gorod metro station, it is today, perhaps, the most incredible place in its attractiveness.
It is a pleasure to wander through the labyrinths of streets, then going up a hill, then going down, past the chambers of the 17th century, mansions of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, buried in the gardens of churches, buildings of the pre-revolutionary printing house, buildings of the Soviet period. There, on Khokhlovka, the shadows of Pushkin, Tchaikovsky, Yurgenson still live...
So what do the residents of this area want?
We must pay tribute, the residents turned out to be not only patriots of their small homeland, but also legally savvy.
They are fighting against the demolition of the district's historic buildings, the construction of a business center and the transformation of Khokhlovka - Ivanovskaya Gorka into modern Patriarch Ponds, where today it is impossible not only to live, but also to be.
The residents defend their position quite clearly, in essence, relying on the letter of the law, they continue to prove, including in court, the facts of the developer's criminal attitude to the historical heritage, which threatens the death of the last stronghold of old Moscow, which is forever disappearing from the map of the city.
First of all, the residents' claims to the project are related to the construction of a business center, for the sake of which historical buildings are being demolished, there is a threat of monuments collapsing into the pit, trees are being cut down and the territory of the entire quarter is being redeveloped. Due to the digging of a pit for a business center, two floors down, the Rachka River, hidden in pipes in the 18th century, threatens to flood the area.
The business center, which is going to be squeezed directly into the territory of the Yurgenson music printing house, is 2.5 times larger than all demolished buildings combined in terms of construction volume.
It is clear that the business center project was created before the pandemic. But the realities of recent times have made their own adjustments. And now it is not clear why such a huge business center is needed, if most office employees can work effectively remotely, which is economically beneficial for employers. For whom are they going to erect this huge monster on such a small patch...?
The Khokhlovka Art Quarter, created by the developer, has announced an open competition for the concept of a Cultural Center based on the 17th century chambers.
Participants of the competition are invited to come up with a concept for the use of several hundred square meters of the northern wing of the 17th century Ukraintsev Chambers.
In the diagram from the Regulations on the competition, in yellow, the organizers marked the design area. This is part of the building at Khokhlovsky lane, house 7-9, building 2.
As can be seen from the scheme given in the Competition Regulations, this is only a small part of one of the buildings in the quarter, and the only part of the large complex of the P.I. Yurgenson, which, even after all the cuts in the composition of the monument and manipulations with its address landmarks, retained the status of a cultural heritage site of federal significance.
It is impossible to make plans for these areas without detailed information about the monument. 17th century chambers with vaulted ceilings, thick walls and complex layouts cannot be changed, either legally or in fact.
Any concept made without taking into account these features will be obviously unrealizable, and after the end of the competition it will remain on paper. Failure to provide the bidders with information about the object also indicates that the organizers of the competition have no other goals than trying to divert public attention from the construction of a business center and the destruction of the historical environment of the last stronghold of the rapidly disappearing old Moscow.
And with regard to the northern wing of the Ukraintsev Chambers, the competition has signs of a fictitious one.
Bad faith is also evidenced by the fact that neither in the Regulations on the competition, nor on the website where it is published, it is even indicated who exactly is the organizer of the competition and who pays the award.
Thus, an anonymous promise is not legally valid; it does not oblige either to implement the project of the winner of the competition, or to pay him an award. This is far from the first case of unfair PR of the Khokhlovka developer. Earlier, after "research" in the chambers of Ukraintsev, well-known objects were handed out for allegedly found artifacts, and the expert texts published on the website of the Moscow City Heritage Site, written as a result of these "research", were just copy-paste from Wikipedia.
Now, on Khokhlovka, damage to architectural monuments continues. The territories of the estates of the brothers Theodor and Andreas Knop in Kolpachny Lane are covered with heaps of soil and broken historical bricks taller than human height.
Work inside the monuments is carried out using jackhammers and other equipment. Apparently, they are dismantling historical elements inside and enlarging the basements, but there is no trace of any signs of restoration work or even archaeological observation.
Prior to this, the activists of the district recorded destruction in the Chambers of Ukraintsev. The most paradoxical thing is that the Khokhlovka Cultural Center, which the developer wants to create by announcing a competition and even promising an award, already exists. For over a year, and without any competition. This Cultural Center was created by the residents of the district. Themselves. No awards, grants or budgets.
Every Sunday there are open-air cultural events, "Sunday Khokhlovsky Standings". Symphony orchestras perform, renowned vocalists sing, poets recite poetry, documentary filmmakers show films right on the facade of the Yurgenson Music Press, the wonderful Yuri Rost opened a photo exhibition of his works, hanging them right on the fence around the Life-Giving Trinity Church in Khokhly. Enthusiasts, professional guides will conduct excursions and tell about it in such a way that it will take your breath away. The entire creative intelligentsia of the capital ardently supports the inhabitants of Khokhlovka, considering it an honor to enter free of charge at the Khokhlovsky stands. Samovar, gramophone, dancing, everything as it was once in good old, cozy Moscow. , but as it turns out, has not yet been completely destroyed.
As for the chambers of the Ukraintsev of the 17th century, there has also been a Cultural Center there for several years, created by Anastasia Yurgenson, the great-granddaughter of the famous music publisher. Anastasia Borisovna conducts Evenings of Classical Music, often together with the Conservatory, gives lectures, organizes excursions around the mansion of her outstanding great-grandfather.
Everything has already been created, initiated from within. There is little left to do. The developer should not fight the residents of the area, but go to meet them. After all, there is something in life that is dearer than money. House, street, city, country. All this is called in one word - Motherland. For this homeland, the inhabitants of Khokhlovka are fighting, as 28 Panfilovites once fought for Moscow.
What is happening today on Khokhlovka is a unique, rare in our time unity of the people in the struggle for Russian culture, for our history, for historical memory.
Khokhlovka today is the last life-giving vein on the body of once beautiful, but now disfigured, killed by a remake of Moscow. Khokhlovka is the soul of the city. To put Khokhlovka under the knife is not only to foster hatred of the authorities.
The destruction of Khokhlovka will mark the completion of the destruction of Moscow as a cultural capital and the final victory in transforming it into soulless Babylon.
An initiative group of defenders of Khokhlovka and Ivanovskaya Gorka calls on the developer to return the situation to the legal field and to conduct an honest dialogue, insisting that the demolition of historic buildings is illegal, and the business center construction project should be canceled.
The position of the initiative group on the issue as a whole: https://disk.yandex.ru/d/Yk8HEBcP-yFQaw