For the convenience of the officials the groves and squares on Kutuzovsky Prospect will be reset

Lyudmila Butuzova

The six-lane highway must pass under the windows of residential buildings and destroy green spaces in the Western Administrative District. Residents' protests against the "understudy" violating their vital interests suspended the project. During the pandemic, when the activity of Muscovites decreased due to the forced isolation, the Moscow authorities again remembered this project. And it began!

At the end of May, residents of the Kuntsevo and Fili-Davydkovo districts noticed suspicious works in the natural park and public garden on Ivan Franko Street. The "surveyors" (as they introduced themselves without showing any documents) carried red posts from place to place and marked the trees, as is usually done before cutting down. The assembled citizens became interested in what was happening here. "Surveyors" evaded questions, quickly picked up the tools and moved to another place. The district groups announced the alarm: "the" understudy" project has been revived, Mayor Sobyanin and the Moscow government are persistently promoting the transformation of Fili-Davydkovo, Kuntsevo and neighboring districts into the side of the toll transit route.

“Local residents consider the construction site to be senseless and harmful”, - one of the activists, lawyer Dmitry Pilin, told NI. - I also live in Fili-Davydkovo, I know quite well the area along which the road will pass. And I am also outraged that for the convenience of officials 15 hectares of an apple orchard planted by the hands of war veterans and children of the war, 7 hectares of the Grove on Kutuzovsky forest area, a park on Ivan Franko Street with century-old oaks will be destroyed. The specially protected natural areas of the Moskvoretsky Park will also be affected. This is harmful not only for residents of six districts - the whole city will suffer, which is already experiencing a shortage of fresh air. The stubbornness with which this project is moving forward, contrary to common sense and at least some expediency for Moscow, is striking.

According to Dmitry Pilin, the Northern understudy of Kutuzovsky Prospekt is the most problematic road construction project in the city. The media keep silent about the project or speak of it as inevitable - “the first toll highway will appear in Moscow soon”, sometimes they even think that it is already under construction. However, it is not. From the very beginning, the "understudy" caused discontent among the local residents, and the correspondence on this matter amounts to entire volumes. Our editors have dozens of letters at their disposal - appeals from Muscovites, municipal deputies to the State Duma, to the Moscow Committee on Architecture and Urban Planning, to the Construction Department, to 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 legal proceedings, 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 explained to NI.

It remains to hope that the problem will be solved in Europe before the territories of six districts are destroyed in Moscow. Veterans' organizations joined the lawsuit in the ECHR: the understudy, if built, will wipe out a historical place from the face of the earth - the Moscow defense line of 1941. At the beginning of this year, an artifact was discovered in the grove - ZhBOT (the reinforced concrete firing point) of those times. Novye Izvestia at the beginning of the year told in detail about the find and how it almost flew to the dump along with the "rubbish" interfering with construction. ZhBOT was saved by the whole world - Moscow needs memory no less than clean air.

The most paradoxical thing in this situation is that the northern understudy will redraw not only the history of the capital, but also its town-planning plan. In the General Plan of Moscow, which was approved by Law No. 17 of 05/05/2010, the territory of the grove on Kutuzovsky Prospekt was assigned to multifunctional park zones. Nobody canceled the general plan. But by some strange accident the grove was not included in the natural complex of Moscow. As a result, the urban forest is presented as ...wasteland in the project of the territory planning for the construction of the Northern stand-by. Truly, miracles happen in the construction of roads, understudies, chords and junctions in the capital! They sacrifice green spaces, the interests and living conditions of local residents. The officials did not even remember about the history - what is the income from it?

In the grove at Kutuzovskiy JSC "New Concession Company" plans to build a toll station on a understudy with a barrier. As follows from the documents that came to the disposal of NI, an agreement on this was signed with the Moscow government.

- The professionalism of the designers of the New Concession Campaign raises very big questions. Personally, I do not trust them, - says Dmitry Pilin. - It is not clear who they are, and why they were asked to design such a responsible and controversial object as a understudy for the government route. The project itself raises doubts - only over the heads, with maximum damage to nature. Although in our Western District there are many specialists - builders and architects, including former employees of the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Construction - they pointed out mistakes and suggested more gentle options for laying an understudy. People defiantly do not listen and they themselves are silent, like fish.

- The timing of the start of construction was not announced, and those that were not announced were not fulfilled, - Dmitry Pilin clarifies. In 2019, there were rumors that construction had begun in the Moscow City area. Indeed, where the understudy was supposed to pass, they began to build a bridge across the Moskva River, and information boards appeared in other sections. But in the end, as it turned out, an MCD railway bridge was being built on the site of the understudy. There is not enough space for an understudy, they can, of course, squeeze in if they wish, but... then there will be no public spaces at all. The fate of residents is to sit in apartments, breathe in exhaust gases.

Nobody knows what is actually happening with the project. Since 2013, full of mysteries. Just in that year, they began to build in stages the southern understudy, which, as the media wrote, would "unload" Kutuzovsky Prospekt. The Moscow building complex obviously liked to "unload" the government highway - the fastest and without traffic lights, on which there are never any traffic jams. Judging by the responses in the district groups, the heads of the people were pretty confused. But try to solve the puzzle yourself: “If you wanted to build a paid northern understudy, then why unload the main one and build a free southern one? After all, there can be demand for a paid one only if the main one is loaded". All these quirks indicate that the Moscow authorities did not have an unambiguous opinion on “the northern understudy, but now this project has become for them something like a suitcase without a handle - and it is inconvenient to carry, and a pity to leave.

The politician Ilya Yashin drew attention to this circumstance: “The construction will cost 40 billion rubles. When it comes to such money, the mayor's office traditionally spits on the interests of residents and on its own laws. The project has not yet passed the state ecological expertise and contradicts the Moscow law "On the protection of green spaces". Public hearings were conducted with violations and scandals. The prefecture simply ignores the protests of residents. By the way, travel on the new road will be paid. “That is, it is being implemented, firstly, in the interests of wealthy drivers who do not want to get stuck in a traffic jam and can afford to bypass the traffic for money. And secondly, apparently, in the interests of Sergei Sobyanin, who is also used to driving from residences to the office without hindrance and with a breeze. The price of this comfort will be an obvious decrease in the quality of life in several areas at once: Dorogomilovo, Filevsky Park, Fili-Davydkovo, Matveevskoe, Kuntsevo"...

An initiative group of local residents has called on the Moscow government for negotiations countless times. However, the prefecture and city hall do not want to listen to anything and guard the town planning plans as a military secret. “I managed to find an answer to the question of why Sobyanin is showing such persistence in the construction of the Northern Understudy of Kutuzovsky Prospekt and for whom it is actually being built,” a well-known Moscow activist Ivan Rozhkov wrote to the FB for the group Save the Park on Ivan Franko Street. -The answer is simple: Sergei Semyonovich Sobyanin is building this road FOR HIMSELF. To be convinced of this, it is enough to make inquiries about the places of his residence. If you follow the link, you will find out that Sobyanin's apartment is located on Rochdelskaya Street, 12 (Krasnopresnenskaya metro station), which is a few minutes drive from the starting point of the Northern Doubler. And the country residence of the mayor is located in the village of Molodyonovo at the intersection of Rublevo-Uspenskoe and 2nd Uspenskoe highways, where the easiest way to get is from the Northern Bypass of Odintsov, which is a direct continuation of the Northern Bypass from the Moscow region. So, everything falls into place: the mayor simply decided to make his way to the dacha easier and for this purpose he will cut down our park on Ivan Franko and the grove on Kutuzovsky Avenue. And he will build it, because the budget of Moscow is bursting with money".

Interestingly, there was no reaction from the mayor's office to this statement, although the public resonance was huge - and it is necessary either to save the reputation of the mayor and prove that the understudy project was created in the interests of all Moscow and federal officials, or to recognize the idea as a mistake and correct it in such a way as to avoid massive felling of trees and the deterioration of the lives of millions of Muscovites.

“And yet there is a feeling that the Moscow authorities themselves do not want to build this understudy”, - Dmitry Pilin gives them a chance. - Perhaps they are waiting for the command when the feds cancel the project. Time itself showed that it was not needed: coronavirus - remote work - the roads were free, at least walk along Kutuzovsky. Rebuild! Develop public transport. People want parks, not highways a hundred meters apart.

Initiative groups of residents of the Western District created a petition against the paid understudy of Kutuzovsky Prospekt, addressed to President Putin - over 7,000 people signed it in two days.

COMMENTARY OLEG KAZENKOV.

member of the council of the Moscow branch of the "Fair Russia" party, lawyer, coordinator of the movement "There is no understudy":

- An understudy is not a scam, it is an ordinary commercial project, and it implies that:

1. the contractor JSC New Concession Company will earn on the construction site,

2. If in the future there is not enough money to maintain a toll highway of federal significance, then according to the Concession Agreement, the city will pay extra income from its budget for the shortfall in the company's income. The business interests of the project are obvious, which cannot be said about its social significance.

But if roads are being built, it means that someone needs it - after all, they do not build two doubles, one of which is paid, say, for the Enthusiasts highway? Moreover, in Moscow there is not a single road leading to the east (although it would be geopolitically correct to develop this direction), but there are many roads leading to the west. Judging by the map, on which the northern understudy rests almost directly on the City, the new highway will most likely be serviced by 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 passage 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 a traffic jam on the Moscow Ring Road, then now they will stand at the exit from the northern understudy in the City area. And also the entire Third Ring will rise.

The Northern understudy of Kutuzovsky Prospekt has only 1 (one) adequate section - this is from City to Victory Park. Further, the Northern understudy of Kutuzovsky Prospekt approaches Kutuzovsky Prospekt and runs parallel to it to Rublevskoye Highway. at a distance of some 150 - 200 meters (at such a distance, highways are not built from each other), i.e. half of the highway (where it is necessary to cut down parks, demolish a bridge, build a bridge and flyovers) is simply meaningless. Therefore, you just need to connect the section from the City to Kutuzovsky prospect and the issue of the Northern understudy of Kutuzovsky Prospekt gamble will be closed. Accordingly, it will not be necessary to:

destroy the apple orchard;

build a bridge across Minskaya street;

demolish the Rublevsky bridge;

cut down a grove on Kutuzovsky;

build an overpass near the station. Kuntsevo;

cut down the park on I. Franko;

build an overpass through the overpass (SZH) at the 10th floor;

transfer communications;

spend a lot of money and 7-10 years on construction.

Now imagine if the project could be implemented, what would be the benefit? It makes all the difference - 1.5 km !, - so much closer to the Northern understudy of Kutuzovsky Prospekt than if you go along Kutuzovsky. The entire understudy effect is 1.5 km, i.e. 1 minute (at a speed of 90 km / h). This is a real bottom and shame. (For comparison, in order to get from one side of Kutuzovsky to the other, residents need to travel more).

By the way, people take quite a constructive position: they do not ask to cancel the project, but want to adjust it in such a way as to avoid massive felling of trees. This is quite possible, and citizens are ready to prove the validity of their proposal to officials with documents in hand.

Forecast. Now everything depends on the residents. In the Mozhaisky District, they reared up, and the track was moved away from them. We now have three areas under attack, and three are affected. I would not rule out popular indignation. And until the construction site is launched, there remains an opportunity to maintain a balance of interests, not to play off the residents and the authorities. There is a much better budget money app.