The wrecking ball swings at Moscow – a photo essay

Moscow is enduring one of its periodic urban convulsions: plumes of dust fill the air, cranes proliferate across the skyline and the streets are soundtracked by pneumatic drills. In the city centre, new parks, infrastructure and freshly decorated historical monuments are the most visible signs of renewal. But there is another, less visible reconstruction programme going on – and one that is startling in its scale.

In June this year, the Moscow Duma unanimously approved the demolition of more than 4,000 apartment blocks in various sites across the sprawling city, home to nearly 2 million people. Most of this housing is privately owned, the consequence of the privatisation of state housing after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has been a highly controversial decision, bringing thousands of Muscovites into the streets in protest.

The prototype

Yulia Fedosova and her son, Maxim, live in a typical five-storey concrete-panel apartment block. Known as a Khrushchevka, after the Soviet leader who orchestrated the industrialisation of house-building, Nikita Khrushchev, it first appeared in 1956 in an experimental housing estate in south-west Moscow that was quickly heralded as the solution to the postwar housing crisis. Factories were built, workers retrained, and by the mid-60s this modest, prefabricated style of apartment block had sprung up like clusters of mushrooms everywhere from Minsk to Vladivostok.

The Fedosovas’ estate is well-connected to the city centre. Essential services – kindergarten, schools, a health centre, transport links – are easily accessible on foot, and their flat looks down on to apple trees, flowers and a children’s play park. It is tranquil, the air is fresh and the development is planned at a human scale. Both Fedosova and her father grew up there; several generations of her family live in nearby flats.

Under the June law, if two-thirds of residents in a block vote yes to the so-called “renovation programme”, the block will be demolished. Fedosova voted no: for her, the demolitions won’t just destroy buildings, but also a sense of history, home and belonging.

Enough yes votes were cast, however, to slate the building for demolition. Once she receives the official notice, Fedosova will be required to leave her home in 90 days, or face forced eviction. She will be given no option of where to live, likely moved to a newly built tower block. The authorities have promised that residents will be rehoused in the same district, but many fear their longstanding networks of families and friends won’t survive the move. Above all, Fedosova fears being exiled in “New Moscow”, the hastily erected towers on the city’s periphery, many of which remain unsold. .

“The attitude towards people is bestial,” she says. “How is it possible to take people and move them to where the authorities want, in high-rise pens with just a patch of greenery in the middle? You cannot treat Moscow and its inhabitants like this. We are not here for the short-term. The city should be built for the comfort of its residents and not developed for the sake of maximising profits at all costs. I’m afraid of the new areas, they are creepy.”

The fix

To counteract the rumours that the renovation programme is really all about profiting from real estate the mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin, is working overtime to persuade residents that there is no alternative to demolition. His team are busily constructing show flats kitted out with state-of-the-art furnishings. Sobyanin insists that the Khrushchevka flats are beyond redemption: the kitchens are too small, there are no lifts or waste disposal system and the roofs often leak.

Yet many residents maintain nothing is wrong with their flats that standard repairs couldn’t fix. Anastasia Yanchikova is one of numerous residents left exasperated and confused by these explanations.

“I feel safe here. I can see my children in the yard,” she says. “We leave our bikes at the bottom the stairs. I have a right to stay in my neighbourhood. I want to choose myself where to live, in what kind of building, place and so on.“I feel deceived. Two years ago politicians obliged me to pay into a capital repair fund for the overhaul of our housing that was scheduled to be completed by 2030. They told us that the houses are strong. And then this year the same politicians tell us that our homes are in an emergency condition and need to be demolished?”

Tatjana Goreleva, a lawyer, and her husband say they have invested more than 1m rubles in their apartment, in a five-storey block of robust brick in the Nishegorodsky district. Like Yanchikova’s, her house was also scheduled for major repairs in 2016 that were never carried out. Her anger mixes with suspicion.

“It is as if this has been done deliberately to bring the house into an emergency condition, and to finish off the opponents of demolition and renovation – morally and physically.”

There are undoubtedly problems with some of the older flats; the build quality is variable. Some architects and engineers argue, however, that the faults can be remedied without prohibitive expense. Professors at the prestigious Moscow Academy of Architecture such as Yuri Pavlovich Volchok and architect Evgeny Asse have said that with intelligent design many of the blocks can be given a new lease of life; structural engineer Sofia Pechorskaya notes that the planning process, which she calls “technically illiterate”, has been carried out without proper research and professional consultation.

The appeals

Vladimir Komarov, a retired government worker, lives in a veritable theatre set of Russian history. His flat is lined with antique green wallpaper, the floors are original hardwood, and he is surrounded by family portraits and clocks made by his horologist grandfather. Three generations have lived here; his grandmother is buried in the cemetery next door. When he received his eviction notice, Komarov had a stroke that put him in hospital for two months. He says he has been loyal to the state all his life, and feels betrayed.

His friend, Vera Voronina, boasts a brand new bathroom, kitchen and living room in her apartment. Over a six-year period, she and her husband saved everything they could and renovated the flat themselves. Though it is nearly complete, the majority of residents in her block voted for demolition, so they will be thrown out.

The residents of their building say their neighbourhood has its own special ecology: it boasts a district heating system and is well served by hospitals, clinics, schools, shops and transport links. Speculation swirls that this is why their apartments face the wrecking ball while other blocks that, they say, are more clearly in need of repairs but more isolated, are left standing.

One option for homeowners is monetary compensation based on what the authorities reckon the flat is worth. But many residents doubt they will receive a fair price. “Since May of this year we have lived as if on top of a powder keg,” says Goreleva. “We do not agree with the renovation program, but to challenge the new laws is not an easy thing to do,” Goreleva adds. “We are law-abiding citizens, and if the state has established the rules on renovation, we are compelled to obey them. But in respect of our home, there has been a clear violation of laws and regulations.”

The infighting

One of the consequences of the privatisation of the Russian housing sector was that homeowners became responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of their properties. For many people on low incomes who couldn’t afford to invest in repairs and renovations, this became an impossible burden. Vast numbers have voted for demolition having been lured by the prospect of a new apartment. Not surprisingly, the vote has caused considerable friction between friends and neighbours on opposing sides of the debate.

Olga and Vassily Leskova met at school. They have lived in their beautifully appointed apartment for 50 years, and seen their children and grandchildren grow up here. They are distraught at the news of their eviction.. Vassily sums it up in one phrase: “Pure deception.”

For the Leskovas, the vote has meant the breakup of the social foundations on which people have built their lives. The peace and harmony of their block has disintegrated. Arguments and shouting matches have broken out. The atmosphere has become hostile. The required meeting of all the residents to decide on the fate of their block never happened; instead, people voted individually and in secret.

One person who has seen both sides of the story is Tatyana Buyanova, an architect and town planner who lives a 10-minute walk away from the Leskovas with her son. Her picturesque two-storey cottage sits on prime land. A former employee of one of the development companies, Buyanova was involved in the selection of potential sites for new housing in the earmarked “renovation zones”.

Buyanova began to suspect that the urban restructuring programme was more about real estate speculation than any social commitment to improving people’s lives. Some journalists, lawyers and engineers say that building codes – including for light, height and proximity of buildings – are being relaxed, and construction permits expedited. When her own home – which she maintains was in good condition – was included on the demolition list Buyanova resigned and joined the protest movement.

“I can not understand how something that in principle is a good idea turned into a horror and a nightmare,” she says. “My neighbours voted for the demolition. I was against it, but it didn’t change anything. The city will not talk to me. One of the deputies even said, ‘Dissenters must submit!’ My apartment is everything that I hold dear – and now I’m losing it.”

The backlash

Pavel Novikov, an engineer, lives in the former industrial district of Metrogorodok. His flat is not included in the programme, which he suspects is because the building site is too narrow to be of interest to developers. The blocks either side are coming down.

A member of the Muscovites Against Demolition protest group, he is typical of the activists who are resisting the demolitions. Most are ordinary folk: pensioners, single parents, newcomers to political action. Notably, a majority are women.

“One of the strange things about the protest movement,” Novikov says, “is that it has awakened in Muscovites a sense of having civil rights, and of their ability to oppose the state’s interference into their private lives.”

Certainly the sense of illegal dispossession is palpable, and in the early days of the protests banners were emblazoned with the word “deportation”. Nikolai Kanchov, who ran in the recent municipal elections for the Yabloko opposition party, argues that the forced evictions violate the Russian constitution, which guarantees the right to private property.

“In a nutshell, the demolition program has deprived me of my right to a home,” he says. “It has made me worried and uncertain about the future. I can’t be sure that my family and I won’t be forced out of our home tomorrow by the will of some tricky bureaucrat, greedy for money. I’m forced to study the legislation and collect testimony, write petitions, claims and appeals, gather signatures, all in order to protect my home. Instead of working and earning my living.”

As well as standing for local government, lobbying deputies, and holding street demonstrations and social media campaigns, dissidence has taken other forms. Artem Loskutov and Lucia Stein came to the attention of residents who noticed a new addition to the graffiti in the Basmanny district: plaster casts of a woman’s breasts, glued to five apartment blocks scheduled for demolition, accompanied by the slogan: “I will protect your home with my breasts.”

It made Stein a minor celebrity, and at just 21 years old she has just been elected as an independent deputy for the Moscow municipal government.

The demolitions

Photographer Vivian del Rio can stare down, from her current flat, on the partially demolished neighbourhood where she once lived. She still remembers the chaos of moving out: people were still packing their bags as the wrecking crews moved in. Reluctantly, she has accepted a new flat in multi-storey tower.

“The view from up here is good, but I miss the birds and fruit trees, the high ceilings, and the neighbourliness. Also, this flat is poorly built. They wallpapered over cracks in the concrete. The doors were replaced within two months and they cheated me by including my balcony in the overall area of the flat.”

A kilometre down the road house lies a neighbourhood that will be completely razed. According to the Moscow Development Department’s interactive map, which shows all the properties scheduled for demolition, 80 apartment blocks will be removed in just this one locale. The website also shows the locations of the new replacement tower blocks – and the large area of land that will then become available for sale. Tellingly, it is close to the city centre, and only two stops from fashionable Gorky Park and the Tretyakov gallery. The land will be sold into the private sector; several luxury towers featuring penthouse flats have been built; there is speculation that other plots may be handed directly to banks by struggling construction companies to repay loans.

After the 90-day eviction period, the timing of the demolition itself is not made public, but the process can be rapid: whole blocks have disappeared in a day. In the Butirsky district of north Moscow, you can see the rubble of recently demolished five-storey buildings. From the top floor of one partially evacuated block, an old lady looked out with a smile. The flats either side of hers are already empty, but she doesn’t look in any hurry to move.

In Krilatskoye, in the north-west of the city, furniture is flying out of the frameless windows. In the empty flats, children’s drawings hang from the wallpaper and family photographs lie on the floor. Clothes, shoes and a ceramic print of someone’s grandmother sit in a pile. People have left in a hurry.

On the third floor of what otherwise appeared to be an entirely deserted block, one padded front door remains locked. The inhabitants have pinned a sign to it:

“We live in this apartment. If you don’t understand, take a look at article 139 of the Russian constitution: ‘The violation of the inviolability of the home.”

Chris Leslie is a documentary photographer and film-maker. Dr Jonathan Charley is a writer and teacher at the department of architecture of the University of Strathclyde. You can read more about their Disappearing Moscow project here.

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