Dead souls and virtual fire: how the "guarded" Sukhanovo estate is being destroyed in the Moscow region

The authorities do not notice the corruption schemes, according to which protected natural landscapes lose their status.

Irina Mishina

Back in 1935, the area of the Sukhanovo estate was 516 hectares. Now only 60 hectares are left of it. But this is not the worst thing. The Sukhanovo estate may disappear for good from the historical and natural map of Moscow and the Moscow region.

The project proposes to remove the protection status established in 2017 from relict pine forests and oak forests located to the east of the estate. As you guessed correctly, in order to knock them out. In addition, the project itself involves the construction of a 7-12-storey residential complex on the site of a century-old forest. According to the plan of the designers, a whole city will soon have to be spread over the entire vast space between Sukhanovo, Fedyukovo, Petrushino and Rastorguevskoye cemetery.

Transfer of specially protected natural areas for construction is not uncommon. Why did Sukhanovo become a stumbling block? First of all, this is part of the history of the entire country. The noble estate of Sukhanovo is a reserved estate of the Volkonsky princes, an architectural monument of Russian classicism of the late 18th – 19th centuries. In pre-Petrine times, there was a royal patrimony here. In 1697, by decision of Peter I, Sukhanovo was transferred to Tikhon Streshnev, the first Moscow governor and confidant of the young emperor. During a long trip abroad, Peter the Great entrusted Streshnev with the administration of the country in his absence. Sukhanovo was awarded for his loyalty to him.

Now the architectural ensemble has fallen into decay. But if historical monuments are destroyed, it means that someone needs it.

From tourist reviews:

- “Abandoned, old and beautiful manor. It could be a pearl and a wonderful park for walking, on a par with Kuskovo".

- “Why is such a devastation in a historical monument ?! For some reason, playgrounds and eateries are near the historical monument".

It should be noted that Sukhanovo is considered a tourist attraction not only because of the historical buildings, but also because of the adjacent forest-park zone. The park impresses with tall, century-old trees, but it does not look well-groomed: burdocks and nettles grow everywhere. There is a spring on the territory where you can get clean drinking water. At the disposal of our editorial office is the conclusion of the expertise of the NPO "Environmental Fund Verkhovye". It states that the fauna of the forest-park zone adjacent to the Sukhanovo estate is "distinguished by good preservation". Its territory is home to at least 75 species of animals. Where will they go in the event of development is a rhetorical question. Apparently, they will migrate between houses and parking lots, entering playgrounds. In addition, as part of a survey carried out by ecologists, 19 rare species of flora and fauna were registered in the Sukhanov forest. Among them there are plants listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation and the Moscow Region.

There is one more circumstance due to which this whole story with the possible development was made public. Back in 1935, part of the Sukhanovo estate was transferred to the Union of Architects as a Rest House. The House of Architects' Creativity is located there now, and the cost of recreation for architects has been significantly reduced. It is clear that the architectural community was outraged by the fact that they were deprived of their favorite recreation area. Thanks to this, the topic of the development of Sukhanovo received a lot of resonance. It is curious that the fate of the crumbling monument of classicism did not worry the architects.

The story of how this protected area came under the threat of development is amazing. Gogolevsky Chichikov, who bought up "dead souls" two centuries ago from villages and villages, would probably sincerely admire the resourcefulness and ingenuity of his successors from the Leninsky urban district of the Moscow region. So, the details.

As you know, after the transition to capitalism, the famous collective farms of the Lenin District were transformed into production cooperatives. At the same time, the collective farmers received certificates of ownership of land shares and, accordingly, a share of the total land fund of the collective farm. At the collective farm named after Vladimir Ilyich in the village of Gorki, at the time the certificates were issued, there were 600 shareholders, and in the collective farm named after Gorky in Molokovo - twice as many. At the beginning of the 2000s, all the lands of the collective farms were sold to various firms, and ultimately ended up under the control of the Rota and Samolet groups of companies, while the collective farms themselves went bankrupt. But certificates for shares remained in the hands of former collective farmers and their heirs.

“It is worth noting that the collective farm at the beginning of the 2000s resold all its land not to anyone, but to Dmitry Sablin, a person close to the then governor of the Moscow region, Boris Gromov. Subsequently, after the change of power, Sablin transferred part of the collective farm lands to the developer Samolet Development, the ultimate beneficiary of which is rumored to be the brother of the current governor of the Moscow region, Maxim Vorobyov.

Thus, the former kolkhoz land was distributed as follows: about a third of the former kolkhoz land ended up with Dmitry Sablin, who in 2020 was included in the rating of the “100 richest civil servants and deputies” according to Forbes and took 18th place there. 2/3 of the collective farm lands actually ended up with the brother of the governor, Vorobyov. After some time, the collective farm shareholders began to offer to buy shares from them at a ridiculous price of 500 thousand rubles. And the area of the land share of the collective farm named after Vladimir Ilyich is about 225 acres!

Many agreed and sold shares. They were offered to conclude a preliminary contract for the sale and purchase of their share and immediately handed over the promised amount. After that, the buyer turned to the cadastral engineer, who measured the plot he liked, which coincided in size with the share he had purchased, and signed a conclusion that this share could be allocated in kind in the specified coordinates.

Since all the real lands of collective farms were already privately owned by that time, the so-called "collective farm shares" were allocated by the cadastral engineer outside the collective farm lands - in forests, parks, city squares, on the territory of the city and even on the territory of the Institute of Horticulture. Having in hand the conclusion of the cadastral engineer and the preliminary sale and purchase agreement, the buyer applied to the Vidnovsky city court with the requirement to recognize his ownership of the plot of land measured by the cadastral engineer. And the court satisfied his claims in full”, - Anatoly Khomyakov, Chairman of the Council of Activists of the Lenin City District, told Novye Izvestia.

Thus, hundreds of hectares in the Leninsky District were sold out. The construction company Granel was allegedly among their buyers.

By the way, it is interesting to note that a significant part of the state land in the Leninsky urban district, in the course of the implementation of the scheme with shares, has already been transferred to the management of foreign capital. For example, about 5.5 hectares in different parts of the Leninsky urban district were owned by the companies Realty Group and Architectural and Construction Alliance, the founder of which is a foreign legal entity registered in the United Kingdom. And the orchards of the Institute of Horticulture on Staronagonnaya Street with an area of about 40 hectares went to the closed-end mutual investment fund "Development" under the management of the offshore company "UK Everest Management", the founder of which is registered in Cyprus. The founder of the related company Everest Management Solutions from the same holding is citizen Mortiros Sevikyan, a top manager of the FGC group of companies, which plans to build a multi-storey residential complex on the site of the gardens.

The story of the development of the Sukhanovsky forest was played out like clockwork. Three experts appeared out of the ground and wrote a conclusion that the Sukhanovsky forest could be transferred from a protected natural area to a built-up area. They wrote about living centuries-old trees that they allegedly burned down during a fire. This document was signed by experts Natalya Kudryavtseva, Galina Semenova and Viktor Tikhonov. The latter became famous throughout the country thanks to his expert opinion, which made it possible to build up the Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd. And as if by magic, a completely new project of the protected zone of the Sukhanovo estate appears on the website of the Main Department of Cultural Heritage of the Moscow Region.

Our editorial office sent a request to the head of this department, Valeria Berezovskaya. The answer we received says that the data on the circumstances that influenced the change in the status of the protected object zone are not known to the Department of Cultural Heritage of the Moscow Region.

Actually, nothing else can be expected from Valeria Berezovskaya, the head of the department. The official has a very indirect relationship to culture. After graduating from the Moscow State Textile Academy named after Kosygin, she worked for a long time in commercial structures, and then immediately got the position of head of the Directorate for registration of property rights and security documentation in the Department of Cultural Heritage of the city of Moscow. From there - to the Department of Cultural Heritage of the Moscow Region. It is immediately evident that Valeria Valerievna is at odds with the interests of business, and she can help with the registration of property rights. But what does all this have to do with cultural heritage?

Meanwhile, experts and ecologists in their conclusions did not leave a stone unturned from the assertion that the Sukhanovsky forest allegedly does not represent any value and generally "burned down" in the 70s. Landscape architect and restorer Vera Sherenkova criticized the transformation of the Sukhanovsky forest into a development zone:

“The new project even proposed for building a forest plot with old-growth oak trees 108-109 years old and magnificent pines, ancient paths have been preserved on the plot, which are reflected on historical maps of 1838 and the beginning - mid-20th century. In their expertise, experts Kudryavtseva, Tikhonov and Semyonova described the building plot (literally according to information from the project) as a site of a former fire where old trees were lost. In a field study, the unreliability of this information published in the expertise and the project is obvious. According to the expert community, the Expertise Act, which approved the project of protection zones and offers development of the forest to the southeast of the territory of the Sukhanovo estate monument, is a document containing inaccurate information from a field survey of the site and violating the principles of scientific substantiation, objectivity and legality".

At the disposal of "NI" there is also a letter from the Union of Architects of Russia addressed to the head of the Department of Cultural Heritage of the Moscow Region Ms. Berezovskaya, which expresses deep doubts about the objectivity of the Act of Historical and Cultural Expertise, which allows the construction of a federal cultural heritage site "Sukhanovo Estate". In this regard, the Union of Architects of Russia instructed the Chairman of the Council for Cultural Heritage of Russia, expert Irina Aleksandrovna Markina to revise this project with the participation of leading specialists and organizations in the field of formation of zones for the protection of cultural heritage objects

Sukhanovsky Forest is not the first and, alas, not the last security object that gets under construction. But he was lucky to some extent, because the rest house of the Union of Architects turned out to be on this territory. Therefore, the enthusiasm of the architects about the Sukhanovsky forest, their favorite place of rest, is natural and understandable. It is a pity that architects are silent when it comes to the destruction of other protected areas, which do not have their houses of creativity. The baker Filippov's estate, the Nikolo-Prozorovskoye estate in the village of Bykovo, the Meshchersky estate in Alabino, the Ostashkovo estate in Volokolamsk, the Lyakhovo estate in Domodedovo, the Sennitsy estate in the Ozyory district and dozens of other cultural monuments are dying and destroyed before our eyes. Nobody knows what the Union of Architects of Russia thinks about this.