Spontaneous car park amidst the rubble on the corner of Kirochnaya and Novgorodskaya Streets, Petersburg, 12 October 2018. Photo by the Russian Reader

Since I had made nearly a dozen trips to and from the Interior Ministry’s Amalgamated Happiness Center this past summer to get my papers in order, I must have passed through the nearby intersection of Kirochnaya and Novgorodskaya Streets just as many times. So, when I happened on the bizarre autumnal scene, picture above, at the same corner yesterday evening, I was befuddled. What had happened here? I could not recall its having looked like this, as if a bomb had been dropped on it a month or two ago.

Fortunately, my friend AC came to the rescue, sending me the following, all-too-typical journalistic account of what happened on the corner of Kirochnaya and Novgorodskaya this past summer.

This is only a single episode in a much larger history of violence, the story of how Petersburg’s bureaucrats-cum-capitalist sharks-cum-property developers have demolished large parts of its historic center, a Unesco World Heritage Site, to satisfy their greed, and how the city has been turned ugly by their lawless exertions in so many spots that all of us who love Petersburg have long ago lost count of the dead and wounded. {TRR}

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Demolition of Garages near Nevsky Town Hall: As If a Mongol Horde Had Swept Through Petersburg 
Have Officials of the Smolny Trashed a Car Park for War Veterans That Existed 60 Years on Behalf of Oligarch Samvel Karapetyan?
Nikolai Pechernikov
Interessant
August 31, 2018

A conflict over the car park on the corner of Kirochnaya and Novgorodskaya Streets that had lasted for years ended recently in a total victory of officials over ordinary citizens. The garages in the car park, allocated to World War Two veterans in the 1960s by the Smolny District Party Council, were not merely demolished. They were swept from the face of the earth, as if they had been located on enemy territory, in a fortified area that was finally mopped up by friendly forces.

Garage Owners? Get the Hell Out of Here!
In photos taken by an Interessant correspondent from a neighboring block of flats, the pogrom unleashed in the car park by the tough guys from the St. Petersburg Center for More Effective Use of State Property is apparent. A quiet corner in downtown Petersburg has been turned into gigantic rubbish heap. The pavement is chockablock with pieces of wrecked garage roofs, tires, car parts, and broken furniture.

The garage owners, who had not wished to exit their car park meekly, but had filed lawsuits, have been punished with all severity. Their belongings have been tossed out of the garages, broken, and dumped in heaps. The people who carried out this mopping-up operation had probably wanted it to be demonstrative: this is what happens to anyone in Petersburg who gets it in their head to take the moral high ground and try and defend their rights.

The rubbish heap that residents of Kirochnaya and Novgorodskaya Streets can see from their windows is a distressing sight. It looks as if Mamai and the Golden Horde had swept through Petersburg. Most important, over the last few days, it has occurred to none of the responsible parties to clean up the area they mopped up. Apparently, the rubbish heaps will now lie there for several more months.

This barbaric, shameful rubbish heap, the aftermath of a car park’s demolition, testifies to the fact that Petersburg city officials care not a whit for the city’s reputation or their own reputations. Photo courtesy of Interessant

There had been several previous attempts to squeeze out the war veterans and their heirs from the land plot on which the now-demolished garages had stood. In 2016, for example, a tractor demolished the entrance gate to the car park. When the gate was lying on the ground, the tractor drove back and forth over it, flattening the gate ever more convincingly, as if it were doing a victory lap. But the special op ended in mid-sentence as it were. Now, however, it has finally been completed.

Samvel Karapetyan? Welcome!
On whose behalf have officials of the Smolny [Petersburg city hall] been making such efforts? Who means more to them than the people who built garages on the plot back in the day on completely legal grounds?

Allegedly, the plot will be ceded to companies belonging to Samvel Karapetyan, president and founder of the Tashir Group, one of the largest property developers in Russia. Unlike the mopped-up veterans and their heirs, Mr. Karapetyan is quite wealthy. As of late 2017, according to Forbes, he had an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion. Bloomberg recently included him in its index of the world’s five hundred wealthiest people.

Petersburg officials cannot directly gift the plot on the corner of Kirochnaya and Novgorodskaya to Mr. Karapetyan, of course. According to our information, it will probably be transferred to Dargov Cultural Center LLC or Slovak House LLC, companies linked to a network of commercial organizations directly connected to RIO, a chain of shopping malls owned by Mr. Karapetyan’s business empire.

What Will Be Built on the Lot? A Shopping Center? Or a Huge Block of Flats?
The lot at the corner of Kirochnaya and Novgorodskaya would be a quite attractive site for yet another shopping center. It is literally a stone’s throw from Nevsky Town Hall [Nevskaya ratusha], where a considerable number of officials from Petersburg city hall will soon be moving. The entire neighborhood now consists of luxury blocks of flats in which only very wealthy people can afford to live. Thus, a RIO Shopping Center on Kirochnaya (if Mr. Karapetyan actually plans to build one) would not only be located close to city officials but would also be a kind of tool for influencing them.

According to other sources, the plot could be redeveloped into a huge block of flats. Officials, businessmen, and lobbyists no doubt would like to move in next door to Nevsky Town Hall. It would be a question of prestige to many of them.

Either project would be highly profitable to the people who implement it, and experienced officials are also probably eagerly poised to pounce on it. They have a nose for such deals.

When so much moolah is at stake, no one has the time of day for the rubbish heap left in the aftermath of the car park’s destruction, a sight that brings shame on Petersburg.

Translated by the Russian Reader