Courtyard in Neopalimovsky Lane.

 

What are Moscow’s dominant colours?

The white-and-yellow shades of the post-fire mansions on Prechistenka, in whose midst the apartment blocks seem like large islands.

Which buildings are emblematic of the 60s?

The Palace of Congresses, of course, and everything that has been demolished on the site of the still-born Kalininsky prospekt. The latter location used to be full of buildings in the style of Moscow’s Style Moderne. At the time of demolition they were a mere 50 years old.

 

How do you feel about 1970s Moscow?

It was then that the first high-rise buildings appeared in the city centre. The terrible thing about them is that they not only spoil the look of the city, but they replace it with another city altogether. A single high-rise is capable of barging aside its surroundings, just as a single golden tooth is capable of turning any woman into a simpleton. If the street block on the site of the Hotel Rossiya had not been demolished, it would now be a living conservation area, a piece of urban exotica. Tourists would love it.

 

You’ve identified a great deal that is negative in the architecture of Moscow. What is the reason behind all this?

We are ruled by bad taste. And it was always thus. A typical example is the story about the different halves of the fa?ade of the Hotel Moskva. Two different designs were submitted on the same sheet of paper. Stalin approved both of them. And no one was brave enough to tell him his mistake. Bad taste dictates what is to be demolished and built. The problem is the excessive sums of money that allow stupidity and strong-headedness to reign unchallenged.

 

Is there a way of fighting bad taste?

Do you know why Moscow’s Third Ring Road ended up not passing through Lefortovo Park?  It turns out that when the bulldozers had already arrived, a woman who was demonstrating (a character straight out of Nekrasov) pulled one of the bulldozer-drivers out of his cabin and bit him on the neck. He was taken to hospital and she to the police station. The bulldozer operators turned off their engines. An investigation was held… So the woman gained time, and this turned out to be enough for the city authorities to have a bit of a think and change their decision.

 

But it’s more usually the case that the city authorities show indifference – which I find shocking. I remember how the Basmanny Market collapsed at the beginning of February. A week later, on the fence which had been put up to screen off the site of the tragedy banners appeared in celebration of February 23^rd [a national holiday in Russia] bearing the words, “Happy Defender’s Day, Comrades!”

 

What do you think of the ecological situation in Moscow?

Each courtyard is a tiny urban ecological system. It only needs the rubbish bins not to be emptied once for rats to turn up in your yard. On the sixth floor of a house in Bryusov pereulok, only a few yards from busy Tverskaya, I used to wake to the singing of nightingales in our interior courtyard. When the nightingales stop singing there, this will mean that the city’s ecology has completely broken down. In Washington lilies-of-the-valley flower in spring around the trees. But here in Moscow they chopped down all the lime trees on Tverskaya at some point and replaced them with movable urns.