Press Release, 17.04.2018

Yabloko Chair Emilia Slabunova appealed to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin with a demand to stop the construction of a huge observation wheel in the Ostankino district, Moscow. Similar letters were sent to the Public Prosecutor of Moscow, top officials of the Department of Cultural Heritage of Moscow and the Federal Service for Environmental, Technological, and Nuclear Supervision (Rostekhnadzor). Earlier, residents of the district applied to Yabloko with a request to help them to protect their district and residential housing from the construction of an expensive observation wheel 140 meters high in the immediate proximity of residential buildings and on the territory of the cultural heritage object – the Exhibition of Economic Achievements (VDNKh).

Emilia Slabunova believes that the construction violates the norms of the city-planning legislation, the law on the protection of cultural heritage sites, and also jeopardises safety of residents of residential apartment blocks No. 8 and No. 10 in Ostankino Street.

The observation wheel “will not achieve the goal of protecting the landscape, planning, architectural and stylistic characteristics of this landmark area, will distort them,” the Yabloko chairman points out. Slabunova also recalls that in accordance with the norms and rules for the design and planning of the city of Moscow placement of fairground attractions is possible only in urban multipurpose parks; whereas placement of such attractions in the territories intended for recreation is prohibited.

Yabloko has been supporting local deputies and residents who tried to stop the construction of the observation wheel. In 2016, Yabloko’s Centre for Anti-Corruption Policy conducted a detailed investigation,  identified the beneficiaries and lobbyists of the project, after which Sergei Mitrokhin, head of the Centre, applied to the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service and the Presidential Administration.

On 11 March, 2018, Emilia Slabunova and local activists were detained by the police for participating in a regional event where local residents were calling to stop the construction of the giant observation wheel.