The battle of the townspeople for the oldest park in Moscow began in Kuntsevo

The ax of the City Hall is brought over a unique natural monument - 2850 centuries-old trees are doomed to felling, the oldest of them is the three-hundred-year-old Kuntsevo oak, which will be cut down for the construction of the Northern backup of Kutuzovsky Prospekt.

Lyudmila Butuzova

The night before, on September 25, in Kuntsevo, under the guise of hired "titushki", workers drove in from the side of a gas station, where there are no houses, and managed to fence off a part of the park with concrete blocks. Local residents Vadim Sokurenko and Savely Rozhkov were the first to notice that something was wrong. An SOS signal flew across social networks. This appeal to Muscovites was published by the Municipal Deputy of the Kuntsevo District Denis Shenderovich:

Help. In Kuntsevo again ecocide. And again Sobyanin is involved in this. They want to cut down a park on Ivan Franko Street, about 3,000 trees and shrubs with century-old oaks, in order to build a paid Northern backup of Kutuzovsky Prospekt, in which there is no point other than convenient transportation of expensive asses from Moscow City to the Rublev dachas. Several ministries and departments have already settled in Moscow City - this road is for them. In this unnecessary understudy, not only contempt for people, not only violation of Art. 42 of the Constitution, but also a violation of the principles of logic, rationality and expediency.

1. North standby is not necessary due to the presence of a south standby.

2. It was an investment project, i.e. were supposed to attract private investors, but for many years no fools were found, and then it was decided to make a toll road at the national expense, from the budget.

3. The tracing of the road can be laid without affecting the park on Ivan Franko and the interests of residents of the Kuntsevo and Fili-Davydkovo districts. Borzet should be in moderation.

Therefore, the best outcome of the situation will be if the officials listen to people and lay the route without touching the green spaces and without laying it near the houses. Ideally, this money will be spent on social facilities, which both districts have long been asking for. But dreaming, as they say, is not harmful. It is harmful to lie on the couch. Therefore, it is important now to support us, residents of Kuntsev. Any help and support".

In a matter of hours, Moscow activists and ordinary townspeople pulled themselves into place. The support came on time - the "titushki" were already spreading their hands with might and main, crowding the residents and threatening reprisals to the deputy of the Moscow State Duma, Sergei Mitrokhin, who demanded that the workers present documents for work in the park. As usual, there were no documents, and there was no information board, which at least formally should notify who and what is up to it. The summoned police squad, under this pretext, suspended work, Muscovites squeezed uninvited guests out of the park.

The next day they came again and set up a shield. And although this is not news for a long time that in the grove at Kutuzovsky JSC “New Concession Company” plans to build a toll station for a doubler with a barrier, but when you see with your own eyes that for this 2850 three-hundred-year-old trees will be cut down, “a storm of indignation” - it's not even the right word. Moscow is losing parks, squares and green boulevards literally at the speed of sound. The implementation of another monstrous project is step by step bringing the city closer to an environmental disaster, 70% of the districts are already suffocating from the lack of clean air.

- How did they get it! - the ecologist Yelena Voropaeva said to "NO", referring to the officials of the mayor's office. - For their own sake, loved ones, they are ready to cut down and concreted EVERYTHING living around. They don't care what you breathe. In their opinion, there are too many of you ... You will forgive me, but their hatred of trees and grass seems irrational to me. He simply hates everything that has the audacity to live and breathe.

Elena believes in petitions to the highest authorities, posted the texts on all social networks and asks Muscovites to speak out in defense of "green lungs in the west of the capital, to sign an appeal to Russian President Putin as a guarantor of human and civil rights and freedoms, so that he instructs the Moscow authorities to cancel the" understudy ”And preserve the last remnants of the once greenest capital in the world. According to her, “several times we managed to achieve at least something”.

But Kuntsevo activists seem to have exhausted all negotiating possibilities. The initiative group has at its disposal hundreds of appeals to the State Duma, the Committee for Architecture and Urban Planning of Moscow, the Department of Construction, the Department of Nature Management and Environmental Protection of the capital. And from everywhere officials of different levels send ornate replies. The project became the subject of litigation, which reached the Supreme Court at the end of 2018. The applicants demanded that the alignment of the route be canceled, insisting that the public hearings had taken place with violations, and opposed the cutting of green spaces. As usual, we lost. But they did not retreat.

“We went through all possible courts - from the Moscow City Court to the Supreme Court. No result! Then we decided to act through the European Court of Human Rights. And there we were heard. The lawsuit has reached it, it has been registered, we are waiting for a decision", - Andrey Larichev, deputy of the Fili-Davydkovo district, associate professor of Moscow State University, explained to Novye Izvestia.

Alas, the pace of the European court is much lower than the agility of the Moscow builders. The ax has already been brought to Kuntsevo and the residents are trying their last bit to prevent the inevitable. A round-the-clock watch is organized in the park, today a kerchief town will be broken up, a protest gazelle is on patrol with the inscription "Do not beat residents before the elections" that has already become known throughout the capital. I don't know how effective it will be. Right now, in these minutes, when the text is being written, a video from the scene of the emergency has been dropped in the FB - work is going on as if nothing had happened, interrupted only by a call from the district police officer. But as soon as the law enforcement officer leaves, all over again.

Let us recall the history of the issue.

For the first time, they started talking about a backup - a paid 11-kilometer road section running parallel to Kutuzovsky Prospekt in 2012. At the same time, the “New Concession Campaign” emerged in the public space as a designer and later operator of this section of the route. The project from the very beginning caused very big questions - only on the heads, with maximum damage to nature and residents of six districts of Moscow - Dorogomilovo , Fili Davydkovo, Mozhaisky, Kuntsevo and Filevsky Park. There are many specialists living in the Western District - builders, architects, including former employees of the Moskomarkhitektura - they pointed out mistakes and offered more gentle options for laying a backup. People defiantly did not listen, although they took a completely constructive position - not to cancel the project, if it is dearer to someone than his own mother, but at least to adjust it in such a way as to avoid the massive felling of trees.

- The timing of the start of construction was not announced, and those that were not announced were not fulfilled, - says Oleg Kazenkov, a lawyer, coordinator of the movement "There is no backup". most likely, businessmen and officials who prefer to settle closer to Putin, but do not want to get stuck in traffic jams due to road closures during his commute to work. And they are ready to pay for it, as they pay now for the regional northern bypass, in order to try to be in time for service. Only if now they leave it directly into the traffic jam on the Moscow Ring Road, now they will be standing at the exit from the northern backup in the City area. And also the entire Third Ring will rise. Now imagine if the project could be implemented, what would be the benefit? The whole difference is 1.5 km !, - so much closer along the SDKP than if you go along Kutuzovsky. The entire doubler effect is 1.5 km, i.e. 1 minute (at a speed of 90 km / h). Bottom and shame...

In the course of an eight-year public investigation, other curious details have emerged. There are not so many officials working in Moscow City. In total, the offices of three ministries, which fit in the building 10.2. And not everyone working there can fan out their fingers, ordinary office workers. True, there are many visitors, but most of them use the metro to travel. And for the coolest, there are helicopter platforms on the roofs.

Thus, the SDKP has no special value as a road.

The atmosphere of mystery deserves a separate discussion, which covers the construction project of the SDKP after the appearance of the concession agreement on it. This atmosphere covers everything: the personalities of the concessionaires, the circumstances of the tender, the conditions for fulfilling the terms of reference, and finally, the very content of the concession agreement. And this secret is great. So large that even the Supreme Court was unable to obtain a concession agreement. Let's try to guess whose ears are peeping through the veil of mystery.

Here, for example, what Kommersant wrote in its article dated 11/21/2014 “The Kutuzovsky Prospekt understudy remained with one contractor. "New Concession Company" became the only contender for the construction of a toll road "( https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2617108):

Where did this successful "New Concession Company" come from, which swallowed up the toll road from MIBC "Moscow City" to Minskoye Highway in one fell swoop? According to Kartoteka.ru, 100% of this company belongs to New Quality Roads LLC, controlled by the Main Road OJSC, created by the Leader Management Company. As you can see, behind the winner of the project is a powerful company "Leader". And this company is associated with Yuri Kovalchuk. The total cost of the project in the city hall is estimated at about 40 billion rubles. According to the initial conditions of the competition, the company must independently invest in the construction of a backup. The investment will pay off with the fare that the investor will collect until 2055. ” The entire composition of beneficiaries from this company is unknown, but, according to rumors, they are also worthy people, or close people of worthy people...

Let's go back to the northern stunt double. “It has a payback period of 30 years”, - according to a collective investigation by residents of Kuntsevo on the website https://zakuncevo.org/komu-nuzhen-severnyi-dublyor-kutuzovskogo-prospekta.html. - That is, for 30 years, money from the city budget will be paid annually to the concessionaire and the persons standing behind him. The amount of these payments is unreasonable. As well as the size of the profit of the concessionaire from the operation of the line has not been established. That is, only the payback of construction pulls more than 2 billion per year. Plus profit, the rate of which can exceed payments for construction by an order of magnitude (everything is determined only by the appetites of the concessionaire). Plus the uncertain costs of the concessionaire for the technical maintenance of the route and the fight against its impact (including snow removal, wastewater treatment, maintenance and repair of the route, reclamation of adjacent land, etc.). Plus compensation for inflation, changes in the state of the national currency, etc.

I would very much like to hope that now, when Kuntsevo and all of Moscow are on the verge of losing the oldest park, "noise, abuse and fearful nature" will prevail over the greed of officials. Or does someone really need to bring the residents of the capital to trouble?