[I first heard about ECOM during a research visit to an independent news agency in August 2005. During my research fieldwork in fall 2006, I could see that they were active all over the city in press conferences, public hearings, and citizen demonstrations. Many St. Petersburg news publications including Delovoi Peterburg and Ekspert now regularly solicit commentary from ECOM staff about developments in the city.]
Translated (by me) from the main ECOM blog at http://www.ecom-info.spb.ru/
The research center ECOM is a non-commercial organization. Its goal is the development of techniques that apply collective intelligence to decisions made by federal and local government authorities and entrepreneurs. One of the main aspects of the Center’s activity is the drafting of normative statements on ecology and city planning. ECOM has organized citizen research studies [impact statements] about the main city planning documents of St. Petersburg: the Master Plan, the Rules for Construction and Land Use, and legislation on the preservation of green spaces. ECOM specializes in nonstandard sociological techniques of public participation in decision-making, such as citizen and administrative public hearings, evaluation methods based on the participation of clients, citizen research, and others.
[ECOM’s actions and statements reveal the staff as bold independent thinkers who absorb what is useful to them from others’ practices and precedents. They believe in the potential of a market economic system to provide a useful system of incentives and opportunities, but they do not accept axioms of market inevitability (see below).]
Translated from Diary of an Ecoist,
a related blog at http://www.ecom-info.spb.ru/about/index.php?id=998
At a certain moment we realized that we are “ecoists.” Ecoism is when a person wants to live in an environment that is favorable for HIM or HER, without regard to “government interests” in economic development, ignoring the assertion that “progress cannot be stopped,” and not accepting as fact the UnConDitional InEvitaBility of the construction of new factories, roads, and so on. The chief motto of the ecoist is: “Whatever is good for Nature is good for me!”
How can such a person live in the contemporary world? And what should be done with the contemporary world so that we could live in it, and not merely survive? This is what we ponder on our informal blog, using the opportunity of live interaction with various people and participation in virtual break rooms/collectives.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
In the words of ECOM: "About Us"
The Research Center ECOM was founded in 1999 under the aegis of the St. Petersburg Naturalist Society.
The main goal in the founding of the Center was the development in Russia of modern approaches in the area of environmental conservation, including: environmental impact statements, ecological management, sustainability indicators, the Local Agenda for the 21st century and others.
Currently the work of ECOM is focused around the problem of public participation in decision-making with environmental implications. The Center’s staff conducts work on the mechanisms of effective public influence on government and business.
For more than 6 years ECOM has successfully realized projects directed at:
- Increasing the role of the public in the process of preparation, deliberation over, and execution of environmentally significant decisions in the economic and social spheres.
- Development of methods for and immediate realization of professional evaluation of the impact of plans, programs and projects on the environment and social fabric.
- Construction of a partnership between public organizations, enterprises and government bodies for the achievement of common goals in environmental conservation. Integration of eco-technology and environmental management approaches in governance.
- Development of a legal foundation that shapes responsibility for the environmental and socio-economic impacts of decisions made by business and government.
The main aspects of the work of the Research Center ECOM are:
- Integration of improved methodology and procedures for environmentally oriented decision-making at the local and regional level in the Russian Northwest.
- Drafting legislation outlining public participation.
- Conducting of information campaigns, public hearings, and similar events.
- Defense of citizens’ environmental rights (legal representation, consultation).
- Consulting business-structures and local government bodies on questions of organization of public participation.
- Realization of educational programs in the area of public participation.
The staff of the Center participate in municipal and regional projects as experts and consultants on questions of organizing public participation. They have also originated academic courses which are offered at the leading universities of Petersburg: the Northwest Academy of Government Service, Nevskii Institute of Language and Culture, St. Petersburg Technological Institute, and St. Petersburg State University. The Center has an open environmental library with a unique selection of contemporary academic literature and reference materials.
ECOM is a partner of leading Russian and international organizations for nature conservation, and is a member of the European Eco-Forum, the Northern Alliance of NGOs for sustainable development (ANPED), and the Coalition of NGOs for the Kyoto Protocol. The experts of ECOM prepared recommendations on citizen participation for the Representative for Human Rights in St. Petersburg.
The main goal in the founding of the Center was the development in Russia of modern approaches in the area of environmental conservation, including: environmental impact statements, ecological management, sustainability indicators, the Local Agenda for the 21st century and others.
Currently the work of ECOM is focused around the problem of public participation in decision-making with environmental implications. The Center’s staff conducts work on the mechanisms of effective public influence on government and business.
For more than 6 years ECOM has successfully realized projects directed at:
- Increasing the role of the public in the process of preparation, deliberation over, and execution of environmentally significant decisions in the economic and social spheres.
- Development of methods for and immediate realization of professional evaluation of the impact of plans, programs and projects on the environment and social fabric.
- Construction of a partnership between public organizations, enterprises and government bodies for the achievement of common goals in environmental conservation. Integration of eco-technology and environmental management approaches in governance.
- Development of a legal foundation that shapes responsibility for the environmental and socio-economic impacts of decisions made by business and government.
The main aspects of the work of the Research Center ECOM are:
- Integration of improved methodology and procedures for environmentally oriented decision-making at the local and regional level in the Russian Northwest.
- Drafting legislation outlining public participation.
- Conducting of information campaigns, public hearings, and similar events.
- Defense of citizens’ environmental rights (legal representation, consultation).
- Consulting business-structures and local government bodies on questions of organization of public participation.
- Realization of educational programs in the area of public participation.
The staff of the Center participate in municipal and regional projects as experts and consultants on questions of organizing public participation. They have also originated academic courses which are offered at the leading universities of Petersburg: the Northwest Academy of Government Service, Nevskii Institute of Language and Culture, St. Petersburg Technological Institute, and St. Petersburg State University. The Center has an open environmental library with a unique selection of contemporary academic literature and reference materials.
ECOM is a partner of leading Russian and international organizations for nature conservation, and is a member of the European Eco-Forum, the Northern Alliance of NGOs for sustainable development (ANPED), and the Coalition of NGOs for the Kyoto Protocol. The experts of ECOM prepared recommendations on citizen participation for the Representative for Human Rights in St. Petersburg.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Height Developments in early 2009
Spring 2009 saw many developments surrounding the Rules on Land Use and Construction. In February, the Legislative Assembly passed the Rules (4 February); City Governor Matvienko signed them on 20 February.
It is a great step forward for the city that the Rules have been passed; they provide the city with standard zoning rules that govern any construction project. However, several scandals have persisted surrounding the height of a range of sites.
For example, the construction company LEK received retroactive permission to leave its large residential complex “Imperial” unchanged just days before the Rules were to go into effect on 9 March 2009. (The complex is located just north of the Novodevichy Monastery, along Moskovsky Avenue between metro stations Frunzenskaya and Moskovskie Vorota; see image in post below.)
In keeping with general city policy and sections of the Rules, an architectural firm was charged with conducting a study of whether the building’s height would affect the visual environment around the Novodevichii Monastery (St. Petersburg’s overall historical architectural appearance and skyline have been designated as objects of conservation). The building’s final height of 73 meters more than doubles the height that eventually made it into the Rules for this district of the city – 35 meters. In April 2009, that firm was scapegoated for the final result. On 6 March 2009, city officials decided that it was most reasonable to let the construction company complete the buildings, partly because many of the apartments located in the top floors of the new buildings had been presold.
On the positive side for those who see new tall buildings as a damaging interruption to the city’s appearance and infrastructure (see post from 8 June), the Legislative Assembly did vote in late January to reduce the permitted heights for at least 78 proposed new vertical “dominants” around the city (see post below with new PZZ maps for the same locations shown on 8 June).
On 23 June 2009, new procedures were approved for obtaining exceptions to the Rules. This is meant to be similar to common procedures in the U.S. for obtaining variances to codes and ordinances. In Petersburg, clearly the most urgent departure that developers want approved is a building height that exceeds what the Rules permit. Reports suggest that developers for some 150 projects would like such a variance… More on this when I have processed the information from various sources.
It is a great step forward for the city that the Rules have been passed; they provide the city with standard zoning rules that govern any construction project. However, several scandals have persisted surrounding the height of a range of sites.
For example, the construction company LEK received retroactive permission to leave its large residential complex “Imperial” unchanged just days before the Rules were to go into effect on 9 March 2009. (The complex is located just north of the Novodevichy Monastery, along Moskovsky Avenue between metro stations Frunzenskaya and Moskovskie Vorota; see image in post below.)
In keeping with general city policy and sections of the Rules, an architectural firm was charged with conducting a study of whether the building’s height would affect the visual environment around the Novodevichii Monastery (St. Petersburg’s overall historical architectural appearance and skyline have been designated as objects of conservation). The building’s final height of 73 meters more than doubles the height that eventually made it into the Rules for this district of the city – 35 meters. In April 2009, that firm was scapegoated for the final result. On 6 March 2009, city officials decided that it was most reasonable to let the construction company complete the buildings, partly because many of the apartments located in the top floors of the new buildings had been presold.
On the positive side for those who see new tall buildings as a damaging interruption to the city’s appearance and infrastructure (see post from 8 June), the Legislative Assembly did vote in late January to reduce the permitted heights for at least 78 proposed new vertical “dominants” around the city (see post below with new PZZ maps for the same locations shown on 8 June).
On 23 June 2009, new procedures were approved for obtaining exceptions to the Rules. This is meant to be similar to common procedures in the U.S. for obtaining variances to codes and ordinances. In Petersburg, clearly the most urgent departure that developers want approved is a building height that exceeds what the Rules permit. Reports suggest that developers for some 150 projects would like such a variance… More on this when I have processed the information from various sources.
Persuasive images
The following three images were published by Zhivoi Gorod ("Living City"), an organization that works to make St. Petersburg residents aware of urban developments plans that, as they see it, threaten the visual integrity of the city as well as political transparency. Their work was initially galvanized by the Gazprom skyscraper announcement in late 2006.
The image above shows what the view down Izmailovsky Avenue would look like if several proposed buildings in the project "Izmailovsky Vista" were actually constructed.
In a similar computer simulation, this image shows what an observer would see from Peter and Paul Fortress looking southeast towards St. Isaac's cathedral IF buildings were built that exceeded recommended heights (in red).
This Zhivoi Gorod photo shows the residential complex "Imperial" along Moskovsky Avenue under construction in March 2009.
The image above shows what the view down Izmailovsky Avenue would look like if several proposed buildings in the project "Izmailovsky Vista" were actually constructed.
In a similar computer simulation, this image shows what an observer would see from Peter and Paul Fortress looking southeast towards St. Isaac's cathedral IF buildings were built that exceeded recommended heights (in red).
This Zhivoi Gorod photo shows the residential complex "Imperial" along Moskovsky Avenue under construction in March 2009.New maps of height guidelines
The final PZZ map set offers comparisons with those displayed in an earlier post. For example, on sheet 93, the permitted heights at upper left have been lessened: dominant No. 145 has been decreased from 140 to 105 meters; Nos. 26-28 have been decreased from 122 to 100 meters.
On sheet 104, the permitted heights indicated in a previous post at 150 meters have been reduced to 120 meters. The Gazprom site (at No. 70) is still set at 100 meters.
On sheet 104, the permitted heights indicated in a previous post at 150 meters have been reduced to 120 meters. The Gazprom site (at No. 70) is still set at 100 meters.
Monday, June 08, 2009
The three posts published on June 8 will make more sense if the third one is read first-- this one and the next with images are meant to support that text.
This map (sheet 93) reflects decisions made in Resolution 1731 (now superseded) and shows the area around the proposed Zenith Stadium (Zenit is the name of the city soccer team). Note that the maximum height of the stadium is 57 meters; notice also the cluster of heights over 100 meters just north of the stadium in an area of assigned "vertical dominants."
This sheet (104) shows the area around the Gazprom Okhta-Center project and eastward. The Gazprom skyscraper is designated here as "vertical dominant No. 70" and given a height of 100 meters. To the southeast, at the bottom of the sheet, notice two spots designating 150 meters maximum height. Both images are publicly available on the St. Petersburg city planning site.
This map (sheet 93) reflects decisions made in Resolution 1731 (now superseded) and shows the area around the proposed Zenith Stadium (Zenit is the name of the city soccer team). Note that the maximum height of the stadium is 57 meters; notice also the cluster of heights over 100 meters just north of the stadium in an area of assigned "vertical dominants."
This sheet (104) shows the area around the Gazprom Okhta-Center project and eastward. The Gazprom skyscraper is designated here as "vertical dominant No. 70" and given a height of 100 meters. To the southeast, at the bottom of the sheet, notice two spots designating 150 meters maximum height. Both images are publicly available on the St. Petersburg city planning site.City Maps and the Height Regulation
This map shows the results of Resolution 1731, proposed in December 2007. The different colors signal different heights permitted in different areas of the city; these detailed heights vary even within the same colored zone, and are printed on larger-scale maps that accompanied this one. Of particular interest is Zone 8 (purple), which specifies minimum heights ranging from e.g. 64 meters to 129 meters. I accessed this map from the St. Petersburg city planning website. The maps took a while to download, but they are freely available-- which, it should be noted, is a significant public service.
This map shows some of the prestige projects proposed or underway around Vasilievsky Island in the Neva delta (located at the center of the city map above). The yellowish areas at center right are the Peter and Paul Fortress (top) and the Winter Palace (center); you can see how near the center some of the projects are.
This map shows some of the projects proposed to the east of the historic center. The Stockmann Shopping Center is actually under construction after the demolishing in fall 2006 of a historic building at the top of Nevsky Avenue on Vosstaniya (Uprising) Square.St. Petersburg Height Regulation
The following paragraphs are an excerpt from an article that will be published in the December 2009 issue of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. I will remove this post once that article becomes available online and I can provide a link to it. Meanwhile, it is important for the blog to clarify the controversy around the Height Regulation.
***
The original Height Regulation was established in St. Petersburg during the nineteenth century and was observed throughout Soviet times. Its fundamental tenet is that no building in the historical center may exceed the height of the cornice of the Winter Palace (24 meters), except for churches and the Admiralty. Its effects were extended over the rest of the city via a corollary that no building be visible from the Neva River embankment or interrupt the “horizontal silhouette” created by the effect of low buildings extending around the expanse of the river; permitted heights vary from district to district. During the 1990s, citizen outcry based on the Regulation successful prevented construction of a skyscraper on the western edge of Vasilievsky Island; Academy of Sciences member and Russian literature scholar Dmitry Likhachev, the city’s “conscience,” warned residents to preserve the city’s horizontality and low skyline.
Far from just a romantic ideal, the Height Regulation was seen as a barometer of development and a safeguard for the character of many residential neighborhoods. In the regulatory chaos of the 1990s and early 2000s, numerous buildings stretched the limits of the Regulation. Extra height and density strained the infrastructure for water and other city services; also, a building that exceeded the Regulation by just a few meters could block the legislated quantity of sun in a courtyard or change the use profile of a neighborhood– that is, change the landscapes on which people built their notions of a good society and social space. Planner Vladimir Roshchin explained this relationship between functional zones and height regulations, noting that in the first version of the Rules (prior to initial citizen comment in fall 2006), certain rezonings would allow heights over 5 stories in some residential areas and “people were afraid precisely of this. … Where there is a possibility to preserve the current height, we’ll preserve it” (Roshchin Interview, 2006).
During the October 2006 hearings on the Rules, restrictions on building heights emerged as a key way that residents sought to track the quantity of building in their districts and the type of new construction (such as hotels or malls) that officials planned to permit. The Rules were supposed to include an updated Height Regulation. Roshchin’s words, in fact, indicate an intended compromise between existing heights and opportunities for growth.The Gazprom project negated the terms of this compromise. In November 2006, the effective regulations for height on the Okhta-Center site would allow nothing higher than 42 meters, 48 meters in case of proving extreme need (Delovoi Peterburg, 11-9-06; 4-28-04). ... Yet Miller openly insisted that the building could be no less than 300 meters tall, and the height of the winning design was 396 meters. Newspapers immediately began to report rumors that officials planned to abrogate the Height Regulation entirely in order to enable the Gazprom project to go forward; this would be a precedent that would enable further violations of the Regulation in other places (St. Petersburg Times, 1-12-07; 9-7-07).
...height (just as elsewhere in the world) signals prestige and global economic sway.
... The precise Height Regulation in effect in November 2006 was Resolution No. 648, passed by the city Legislative Assembly (under Matvienko) on 4 April 2004, referred to as the “Temporary Height Regulation” since a new one was expected to emerge with the new Master Plan. As implied above, the Master Plan document was framed generally and did not include such details of construction parameters; the Rules on Land Use and Construction included maps with a range of zones indicating intended use, but permitted heights remained unclear; this left the 2004 Regulation in force. Meanwhile, throughout 2007, the Rules were discussed and lobbied at KGA but did not advance to the Legislative Assembly. On 28 December 2007, a new Height Regulation was passed in that body as Resolution No. 1731 – by phone vote, or “poll,” as newspapers reported – without the required public consultation. City residents were first made aware of this new version at the hearing on 14 January 2008 for the Temporary Construction Permit specifically for Okhta-Center. A map appended to the Resolution (available on the city website) designates a new range of zones with greatly increased heights throughout the city... This new version allows a height of 100 meters at the Okhta-Center site. [see next post] ... The wording of the Resolution invalidates the Temporary Regulation of 2004; the resolution itself reportedly took effect in April 2008, but a note on the city website still stated in July 2008 that it had not.
In any case, as of autumn 2008 neither the Rules nor the Resolution were yet law. Resolution No. 1731 reportedly constituted a kind of appendix on height for the Rules; these were finally sent to the Legislative Assembly on 2 July 2008, with the intention of considering them in September 2008. However, according to Boris Nikolashchenko, head of the working group for the Master Plan, he has an order to reformulate the height parameters even after the submission of Resolution 1731 to the Assembly (Novaya Gazeta, 7-24-08). Public pressure on the city administration has again increased in light of a scandal that broke out in June 2008 after a published photograph “suddenly” showed how a new building in the center of Vasilievsky Island could be clearly seen behind historical landmarks when standing on central city bridges. In January 2008, Nikolashchenko was quoted as saying, “Everything is done in order to push through the irresponsible project for the Okhta-Center skyscraper. The authorities don’t consider the public (obshchestvennost′) at all. It wasn’t like this even in Soviet times. … In 2004 everything was very democratic and open” (Novaya Gazeta, 1-21-08).
[end excerpt]
***
The original Height Regulation was established in St. Petersburg during the nineteenth century and was observed throughout Soviet times. Its fundamental tenet is that no building in the historical center may exceed the height of the cornice of the Winter Palace (24 meters), except for churches and the Admiralty. Its effects were extended over the rest of the city via a corollary that no building be visible from the Neva River embankment or interrupt the “horizontal silhouette” created by the effect of low buildings extending around the expanse of the river; permitted heights vary from district to district. During the 1990s, citizen outcry based on the Regulation successful prevented construction of a skyscraper on the western edge of Vasilievsky Island; Academy of Sciences member and Russian literature scholar Dmitry Likhachev, the city’s “conscience,” warned residents to preserve the city’s horizontality and low skyline.
Far from just a romantic ideal, the Height Regulation was seen as a barometer of development and a safeguard for the character of many residential neighborhoods. In the regulatory chaos of the 1990s and early 2000s, numerous buildings stretched the limits of the Regulation. Extra height and density strained the infrastructure for water and other city services; also, a building that exceeded the Regulation by just a few meters could block the legislated quantity of sun in a courtyard or change the use profile of a neighborhood– that is, change the landscapes on which people built their notions of a good society and social space. Planner Vladimir Roshchin explained this relationship between functional zones and height regulations, noting that in the first version of the Rules (prior to initial citizen comment in fall 2006), certain rezonings would allow heights over 5 stories in some residential areas and “people were afraid precisely of this. … Where there is a possibility to preserve the current height, we’ll preserve it” (Roshchin Interview, 2006).
During the October 2006 hearings on the Rules, restrictions on building heights emerged as a key way that residents sought to track the quantity of building in their districts and the type of new construction (such as hotels or malls) that officials planned to permit. The Rules were supposed to include an updated Height Regulation. Roshchin’s words, in fact, indicate an intended compromise between existing heights and opportunities for growth.The Gazprom project negated the terms of this compromise. In November 2006, the effective regulations for height on the Okhta-Center site would allow nothing higher than 42 meters, 48 meters in case of proving extreme need (Delovoi Peterburg, 11-9-06; 4-28-04). ... Yet Miller openly insisted that the building could be no less than 300 meters tall, and the height of the winning design was 396 meters. Newspapers immediately began to report rumors that officials planned to abrogate the Height Regulation entirely in order to enable the Gazprom project to go forward; this would be a precedent that would enable further violations of the Regulation in other places (St. Petersburg Times, 1-12-07; 9-7-07).
...height (just as elsewhere in the world) signals prestige and global economic sway.
... The precise Height Regulation in effect in November 2006 was Resolution No. 648, passed by the city Legislative Assembly (under Matvienko) on 4 April 2004, referred to as the “Temporary Height Regulation” since a new one was expected to emerge with the new Master Plan. As implied above, the Master Plan document was framed generally and did not include such details of construction parameters; the Rules on Land Use and Construction included maps with a range of zones indicating intended use, but permitted heights remained unclear; this left the 2004 Regulation in force. Meanwhile, throughout 2007, the Rules were discussed and lobbied at KGA but did not advance to the Legislative Assembly. On 28 December 2007, a new Height Regulation was passed in that body as Resolution No. 1731 – by phone vote, or “poll,” as newspapers reported – without the required public consultation. City residents were first made aware of this new version at the hearing on 14 January 2008 for the Temporary Construction Permit specifically for Okhta-Center. A map appended to the Resolution (available on the city website) designates a new range of zones with greatly increased heights throughout the city... This new version allows a height of 100 meters at the Okhta-Center site. [see next post] ... The wording of the Resolution invalidates the Temporary Regulation of 2004; the resolution itself reportedly took effect in April 2008, but a note on the city website still stated in July 2008 that it had not.
In any case, as of autumn 2008 neither the Rules nor the Resolution were yet law. Resolution No. 1731 reportedly constituted a kind of appendix on height for the Rules; these were finally sent to the Legislative Assembly on 2 July 2008, with the intention of considering them in September 2008. However, according to Boris Nikolashchenko, head of the working group for the Master Plan, he has an order to reformulate the height parameters even after the submission of Resolution 1731 to the Assembly (Novaya Gazeta, 7-24-08). Public pressure on the city administration has again increased in light of a scandal that broke out in June 2008 after a published photograph “suddenly” showed how a new building in the center of Vasilievsky Island could be clearly seen behind historical landmarks when standing on central city bridges. In January 2008, Nikolashchenko was quoted as saying, “Everything is done in order to push through the irresponsible project for the Okhta-Center skyscraper. The authorities don’t consider the public (obshchestvennost′) at all. It wasn’t like this even in Soviet times. … In 2004 everything was very democratic and open” (Novaya Gazeta, 1-21-08).
[end excerpt]
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Street Activism (written 10 September 2007)
On Saturday, September 8, the third of three large demonstrations this year took place in St. Petersburg, Russia. A locally produced online newspaper put the number of demonstrators at 1500; the few Western media outlets who gave the demonstration brief coverage had numbers that ranged from 2000 to 4000. The organizers had expected more than 5000 people. As has happened before, Russian observers of the demonstration have concluded that smaller-than-expected numbers mean that the causes represented by the demonstrators have little resonance with the public at large.
The most prominent of the “causes” is opposition to the proposed skyscraper that would be headquarters for the Gazprom corporation. The skyscraper was announced in summer 2006 and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller awarded design rights to a British firm in early December 2006; the struggle between proponents and opponents has continued since then. Opponents have appealed to native Petersburgers’ love of their historical city center and horizontal skyline. After all, this is the city where the first large demonstration against Soviet policy took place in the late 1980s over a proposal to demolish a building where a beloved nineteenth-century poet once lived (just a friend of the more famous Pushkin); this was a key moment in the glasnost movement in St. Petersburg. Those who want to use the Gazprom issue to whip up local sentiment can’t be blamed for thinking they could recapture some of that spirit. Prominent city architects, art historians, local politicians, and even the renowned film director Alexander Sokurov have spoken out against the skyscraper. Those who favor the project say that they want to see Petersburg become a modern, vibrant city; those who oppose it fear that the city will lose its UNESCO status as a World Heritage Site in particular, and in general, lose its soul. But Gazprom isn’t even the main issue.
The Gazprom skyscraper indeed raises some serious questions about how things are happening in the city. We don’t hear much about the transportation problems that the skyscraper would create, in a city where underground parking is often prohibitively expensive or inadvisable due to underground rivers and marshy ground. Depending on your taste, it is just the wrong building to help Petersburg take a big step into the 21st century. But even Russian politicians who think they can unite democratic opposition behind the opposition to Gazprom are missing the real story of grassroots civil society development.
First, there’s transportation. The city wants the building to make St. Petersburg more vibrant and modern, but it hasn’t succeeded in building its ringroad highway around the entire city; the “ring” only serves the eastern side, and suffers from chronic traffic jams caused largely by inefficient insurance regulations. Even more importantly, Gazprom has become a convenient rallying point for city residents of all ages who are frustrated with nontransparent construction practices that have destroyed neighborhood parks and in some areas tried to make residents responsible for the bill to demolish their own buildings so that new, more expensive housing can be built in their place.
The Gazprom issue has been such a tempting one for would-be political organizers in St. Petersburg because it represents so many neighborhood-level problems writ large. The very same challenges with inadequate infrastructure or nontransparent resettlements and transactions have brought together residents in many different districts of the city – usually into small, isolated bands of people who are upset enough to spend their time studying city code, writing letters, speaking to reporters, and attempting to get their story out. When they can, they try to attend each other’s demonstrations (which usually must remain small, due to recent requirements that any public demonstration that does not first obtain a permit must not exceed five people). Sometimes, when I interviewed activists from different districts in fall 2006, I was the first person to pass along phone numbers and put them in contact with each other.
It is tricky right now to evaluate phenomena of Russian “civil society.” Those who participate do not look like successful American protesters or political activists, and so perhaps prominent American commentators are reluctant to throw their lot in with them. The demonstrators who make it into photographs tend to be senior citizens – this allows both Russian and Western observers to conclude that the demonstrations are just the last gasp of a generation that was used to the paternalism of the Soviet regime, and just can’t handle capitalism.
In fact there are many young people involved, and middle-aged people as well – if you measure the validity of a civil society movement by age, then activism in St. Petersburg qualifies. It is also quite hard-working, creative, and pragmatic in many cases. The Gazprom issue is a sexy stand-in for more prosaic challenges faced by residents of the city in numerous neighborhoods – the most notable being what they call “in-fill,” or construction that attempts to take advantage of existing (and overstressed) service infrastructure in spite of city regulations to the contrary. Residents of many neighborhoods have lost their parks, or part of a park, or the green space that they came to use as a park, or a multi-story building is projected in a place where it would block any sunlight from falling on a school (which is measured by city regulations).
The most prominent of the “causes” is opposition to the proposed skyscraper that would be headquarters for the Gazprom corporation. The skyscraper was announced in summer 2006 and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller awarded design rights to a British firm in early December 2006; the struggle between proponents and opponents has continued since then. Opponents have appealed to native Petersburgers’ love of their historical city center and horizontal skyline. After all, this is the city where the first large demonstration against Soviet policy took place in the late 1980s over a proposal to demolish a building where a beloved nineteenth-century poet once lived (just a friend of the more famous Pushkin); this was a key moment in the glasnost movement in St. Petersburg. Those who want to use the Gazprom issue to whip up local sentiment can’t be blamed for thinking they could recapture some of that spirit. Prominent city architects, art historians, local politicians, and even the renowned film director Alexander Sokurov have spoken out against the skyscraper. Those who favor the project say that they want to see Petersburg become a modern, vibrant city; those who oppose it fear that the city will lose its UNESCO status as a World Heritage Site in particular, and in general, lose its soul. But Gazprom isn’t even the main issue.
The Gazprom skyscraper indeed raises some serious questions about how things are happening in the city. We don’t hear much about the transportation problems that the skyscraper would create, in a city where underground parking is often prohibitively expensive or inadvisable due to underground rivers and marshy ground. Depending on your taste, it is just the wrong building to help Petersburg take a big step into the 21st century. But even Russian politicians who think they can unite democratic opposition behind the opposition to Gazprom are missing the real story of grassroots civil society development.
First, there’s transportation. The city wants the building to make St. Petersburg more vibrant and modern, but it hasn’t succeeded in building its ringroad highway around the entire city; the “ring” only serves the eastern side, and suffers from chronic traffic jams caused largely by inefficient insurance regulations. Even more importantly, Gazprom has become a convenient rallying point for city residents of all ages who are frustrated with nontransparent construction practices that have destroyed neighborhood parks and in some areas tried to make residents responsible for the bill to demolish their own buildings so that new, more expensive housing can be built in their place.
The Gazprom issue has been such a tempting one for would-be political organizers in St. Petersburg because it represents so many neighborhood-level problems writ large. The very same challenges with inadequate infrastructure or nontransparent resettlements and transactions have brought together residents in many different districts of the city – usually into small, isolated bands of people who are upset enough to spend their time studying city code, writing letters, speaking to reporters, and attempting to get their story out. When they can, they try to attend each other’s demonstrations (which usually must remain small, due to recent requirements that any public demonstration that does not first obtain a permit must not exceed five people). Sometimes, when I interviewed activists from different districts in fall 2006, I was the first person to pass along phone numbers and put them in contact with each other.
It is tricky right now to evaluate phenomena of Russian “civil society.” Those who participate do not look like successful American protesters or political activists, and so perhaps prominent American commentators are reluctant to throw their lot in with them. The demonstrators who make it into photographs tend to be senior citizens – this allows both Russian and Western observers to conclude that the demonstrations are just the last gasp of a generation that was used to the paternalism of the Soviet regime, and just can’t handle capitalism.
In fact there are many young people involved, and middle-aged people as well – if you measure the validity of a civil society movement by age, then activism in St. Petersburg qualifies. It is also quite hard-working, creative, and pragmatic in many cases. The Gazprom issue is a sexy stand-in for more prosaic challenges faced by residents of the city in numerous neighborhoods – the most notable being what they call “in-fill,” or construction that attempts to take advantage of existing (and overstressed) service infrastructure in spite of city regulations to the contrary. Residents of many neighborhoods have lost their parks, or part of a park, or the green space that they came to use as a park, or a multi-story building is projected in a place where it would block any sunlight from falling on a school (which is measured by city regulations).
Some Background on Urban Politics in Petersburg
On March 3, 2007, a major street demonstration took place in St. Petersburg. As the business magazine Ekspert implied afterward in its commentary, observers from the middle-class and the West might rather be associated with the visually attractive and familiar Russian cultural elite than with the elderly pensioners and dissatisfied poor who often have been the ones desperate enough to show up to demonstrations (Ekspert 2007 no. 10, 12-18 March, p.80). However, as the same Ekspert article asserted, the number of people who showed up to the “March of the Dissidents” in St. Petersburg indicated that dissatisfaction with the government “was the position not merely of a handful of marginals, and to ignore it completely was now impossible… The photos that showed bedraggled retirees with wrinkled faces and absurd posters, not to mention nationalist bands, do little to show the real composition of the crowds” (p. 78, 79). Indeed, the article’s authors added, “the majority of the demonstrators were made up of the most average of Petersburgers” (p. 81).
In fact “dissidents” --the word used most often in the Western press to translate "nesoglasnye" -- was a mistranslation in some ways. That word links the new movement with cultural and social figures who opposed Soviet-era communist bureaucrats; it has a specific historical context. The word “dissident” exists in Russian, but was not used in this case. The most literal translation of “Marsh nesoglasnykh,” the March 2007 demonstration (and others) is “March of Those-who-don’t-agree”; it has also been translated as "March of the Dissenters."
While Western media coverage focused on the Yabloko party, on Gary Kasparov and on other prominent political figures, the real spark behind the spontaneous participation of average Petersburgers in the demonstration on 3 March 2007 was the frustration with the lack of transparency in the city government’s handling of urban development. In particular, the plan to build a 300-meter skyscraper directly across the river from Smolny Cathedral had been rankling since the announcement in December 2006 of the winner of a competition to design this tower for the Gazprom corporation, Russia’s natural gas giant. Beneath the frustration with Gazprom was also a growing network of what we would call grassroots activists—active citizens in neighborhoods across the city who had been developing civic skills for months in the struggle to prevent various urban development projects in their districts. Over time, these groups began to find out about each other and cooperate in order to gather information, prepare legal documents, and engage in community outreach.
A crucial common factor in this developing network was the legal consulting organization ECOM, or St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists. ECOM has provided ample proof that those who “do not agree” are not just romantic dissidents but also smart, resourceful pragmatists; that Russian activists can have a decided impact on government decisions; and that Russians are not apathetic and doomed to have an authoritarian government. This blog will be continued in their honor, with a major goal being to provide information in English about their activities.
In fact “dissidents” --the word used most often in the Western press to translate "nesoglasnye" -- was a mistranslation in some ways. That word links the new movement with cultural and social figures who opposed Soviet-era communist bureaucrats; it has a specific historical context. The word “dissident” exists in Russian, but was not used in this case. The most literal translation of “Marsh nesoglasnykh,” the March 2007 demonstration (and others) is “March of Those-who-don’t-agree”; it has also been translated as "March of the Dissenters."
While Western media coverage focused on the Yabloko party, on Gary Kasparov and on other prominent political figures, the real spark behind the spontaneous participation of average Petersburgers in the demonstration on 3 March 2007 was the frustration with the lack of transparency in the city government’s handling of urban development. In particular, the plan to build a 300-meter skyscraper directly across the river from Smolny Cathedral had been rankling since the announcement in December 2006 of the winner of a competition to design this tower for the Gazprom corporation, Russia’s natural gas giant. Beneath the frustration with Gazprom was also a growing network of what we would call grassroots activists—active citizens in neighborhoods across the city who had been developing civic skills for months in the struggle to prevent various urban development projects in their districts. Over time, these groups began to find out about each other and cooperate in order to gather information, prepare legal documents, and engage in community outreach.
A crucial common factor in this developing network was the legal consulting organization ECOM, or St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists. ECOM has provided ample proof that those who “do not agree” are not just romantic dissidents but also smart, resourceful pragmatists; that Russian activists can have a decided impact on government decisions; and that Russians are not apathetic and doomed to have an authoritarian government. This blog will be continued in their honor, with a major goal being to provide information in English about their activities.
New focus for the blog
I wanted to continue this blog in order to cover issues in Russian cultural, social and political development that warrant more attention.
As a focal point, I will start with the efforts of an NGO in St. Petersburg that has taken an active role in empowering city residents to question and/or prevent urban development projects that affect neighborhoods and social uses of space. The most famous case they have worked on over the past two years is the fight to prevent construction of Okhta-Center, a nearly 400-meter-high skyscraper across the river from the baroque 18th-century Smolny Cathedral at the eastern edge of the historic preservation zone.
Consider this: the fight to keep neighborhoods and land use under a certain arrangement is not mere nostalgia or resistance to modernization, but a means to develop political participation. While to Western eyes the fight to prevent a skyscraper or a mall might look simply reactionary or “backwards,” in the contemporary Russian context we have to see the active elements of civil society which are working through architecture and land use against government policies that are non-transparent, with the goal not only of preserving certain buildings or uses but of creating that desired governmental transparency. Their efforts to sustain a particular arrangement of space are not just NIMBY (‘not in my backyard’) or anti-modernism. We observers have to reorganize our analysis: do we evaluate others’ actions based on loyalty to a particular architecture and a particular urban appearance, or to people who are trying to enact particular political values?
While some elements of the development community and municipal government have made honest efforts to address new economic realities and urgent needs for new infrastructure, the desires of residents have not been evenly taken into account. In the West we are used to approving the ‘highest economic use’ and basing our evaluations on that principle; in Russia many people still have an idea, roughly speaking, of ‘highest social use’ of space.
As a focal point, I will start with the efforts of an NGO in St. Petersburg that has taken an active role in empowering city residents to question and/or prevent urban development projects that affect neighborhoods and social uses of space. The most famous case they have worked on over the past two years is the fight to prevent construction of Okhta-Center, a nearly 400-meter-high skyscraper across the river from the baroque 18th-century Smolny Cathedral at the eastern edge of the historic preservation zone.
Consider this: the fight to keep neighborhoods and land use under a certain arrangement is not mere nostalgia or resistance to modernization, but a means to develop political participation. While to Western eyes the fight to prevent a skyscraper or a mall might look simply reactionary or “backwards,” in the contemporary Russian context we have to see the active elements of civil society which are working through architecture and land use against government policies that are non-transparent, with the goal not only of preserving certain buildings or uses but of creating that desired governmental transparency. Their efforts to sustain a particular arrangement of space are not just NIMBY (‘not in my backyard’) or anti-modernism. We observers have to reorganize our analysis: do we evaluate others’ actions based on loyalty to a particular architecture and a particular urban appearance, or to people who are trying to enact particular political values?
While some elements of the development community and municipal government have made honest efforts to address new economic realities and urgent needs for new infrastructure, the desires of residents have not been evenly taken into account. In the West we are used to approving the ‘highest economic use’ and basing our evaluations on that principle; in Russia many people still have an idea, roughly speaking, of ‘highest social use’ of space.
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