Muscovites demanded the resignation of Vice Mayor of Moscow at a rally
Press Release, 01.02.2015
On February 1 YABLOKO conducted a rally for resignation of Marat Kusnullin, Vice Mayor of Moscow for Urban Development and Historical Heritage. The rally was held within the campaign for the resignation of Deputy Mayor. The action too place in the centre of Moscow, in Novopushkinskiy garden at 14:00. About 300 people participated in the rally.
Coordinator of Arkhnadzor public movement (historical heritage protecting organisation), member of presidential council for culture and art Konstantin Mikhaylov, municipal deputies Elena Rusakova, Alexandra Parushyna, Alexandra Andreyeva and other civil activists and initiative groups. First Deputy Chair of the Moscow branch of YABLOKO Galina Mikhaleva presided over the rally.
YABLOKO Chair Sergei Mitrokhin
“A dangerous, insidious and ungrateful team came to work in Moscow. What for? So that the federal authorities could have an effective lever of development of Moscow in their hands. These people don’t care about our city, they don’t love it,” said YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin.
According to Mitrokhin, the current ruling team take “our culture and history” away from the Muscovites by destroying the historical memory of Moscow.
Galina Mikhaleva
“A war has been declared to our values and culture. Crises in economics and social sphere begin exactly with such a war. The authorities who do not respect the values of the people will spit in the people’s faces,” – said Mitrokhin.
During his speech Sergei Mitrokhin “awarded” a cardboard figure of Khusnullin. “I think that the anti-hero who we are talking about today must get an award. The award he earned for his activity. We can’t call it a town planning policy. It’s a policy of destruction of our city.”
Coordinator of the Arhnadzor public movement Konstantin Mikhailov noted that today’s meeting was city-wide since the discussed problems concerned everyone citizen of the capital.
“The city must be saved. For four years they’ve been trying to convince us that some urban revolution had taken place. For four years we’ve been told that we have some kind of humane policy. One can not believe it. While they tell us that they cancel contracts and take custody of monuments they actually demolish them,” he said, recalling that within the past four years Khusnullin and Co. destroyed the buildings which even Yuri Luzhkov’s team (ex Moscow Mayor) didn’t dare to touch.
Head of YABLOKO public reception room Irina Kopkina
Earlier the collection of signatures for the resignation of Khusnullin was organized in the Internet. At the moment, the petition has been signed by nearly 5,000 people.
[Marat Khusnullin has been in office since 2010. In this period Moscow lost many historical buildings of irreplaceable cultural value – about 40 historical monuments were ruthlessly destroyed, including the the mansion of Prince Volkonsky (who became one of the key protagonists of the War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy) at Vozdvizhenka 9.
The recent egregious case is demolition of the complex of tenement houses of merchant Privalov (at Sadovnicheskaya 9) authorized by Khusnullin.
Privalov’s tenement houses represent a unique ensemble, which gives an idea of the evolution of works by architect Ernst-Richard Nirnzee, famous for his Art Nouveau buildings. In addition, these buildings are closely connected with the history of Russian literature, in particular many poets of the Silver Age, including Sergei Yesenin. Publishing house Mlechniy Put (Milky Way) which published the first poems by Yesenin was located in one of the buildings in 1913-1916.
The decision on demolishing was adopted despite the protests of Muscovites, historians and architects. Also the buildings were identified as cultural heritage and were protected by the state.
The public was not allowed to discuss the issue at a meeting of the Commission on Urban Development and Hitorical Heritage headed by Khusnullin.]
After the rally the activists laid flowers to the monument to Sergei Yesenin at Tversky Boulevard and recited Yesenin’s poems.
YABLOKO collected more than 200 signatures for resignation of Khusnullin during the rally
YABLOKO launched a campaign for resignation of vice-Moscow mayor Marat Khusnullin
Posted: February 5th, 2015 under Environmental Policies.