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Putin's Wrecking Ball

Kremlin Demolishes Red Square Buildings

By Uwe Klussmann

The Kremlin administration has demolished historic buildings on Moscow's Red Square without a permit -- in order to build a luxury hotel in their place. The Russian public prosecutor's office is investigating the case and now UNESCO is also looking into the destruction of part of a World Heritage Site.

Under cover of darkness, heavy army trucks rolled onto Red Square and disappeared behind huge tarpaulins. Painted with drawings of the buildings hidden behind them, the tarpaulins were meant to create the illusion that these buildings were under renovation. But the government was taking pains to keep Muscovites in the dark about what the trucks were really doing there -- in a place where the Soviet empire had once housed its defense ministry.

When the late February sun rose the next morning over the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral, the trucks had disappeared and, along with them, four of the buildings at 5 Red Square -- part of a world-famous complex of urban structures. Nothing but a gaping construction site remained where the so-called Middle Trading Rows had once stood resplendent -- neo-Russian architectural gems in the classic style, as unique as the neighboring building, Moscow's famous GUM department store.

The buildings were dismantled using bulldozers and excavators, even though the relevant Moscow agency had not issued any permits to demolish the cultural heritage site. An irate David Sarkisyan, the director of the State Museum of Architecture, called the illegal demolition an "act of government vandalism." But the men who had sent the wrecking balls to Red Square in the first place had little reason to worry. They manage what amounts to Russia's most powerful real estate organization: the Kremlin Property Department.

The mega-department has more than 50,000 employees, its empire includes hotels and nursing homes, and it also serves as a real estate broker for members of parliament and high-ranking judges. It is run by Vladimir Koshin, a close associate of President Vladimir Putin from Putin's days as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. The Kremlin's property manager's official salary is paltry. In 2002, Koshin revealed that he earned the equivalent of €300 a month.

But since the days of Koshin's enigmatic predecessor, Pavel Borodin, the better jobs in the property department have been seen as "Kormushka," or feeding troughs for corrupt officials. Borodin, who had made the ambitious Putin his deputy in 1996, was arrested in the United States in January 2001 on money laundering charges. Swiss prosecutors in Geneva imposed a fine of €203,000 on Borodin in March 2002, also for money laundering. But the fine didn't hurt his standing at the Kremlin. Indeed, Borodin now works as a state secretary.

His successor, Koshin, who was put in office to clean up the scandal-ridden department's reputation, promised to bring it up to "market economy conditions." The cloak-and-dagger operation on Red Square was apparently part of that effort.

Architect Roman Klein, who also designed Moscow's Pushkin Museum, drew up the plans for the Middle Trading Rows, which bordered Red Square to the northeast, in the late 19th century. According to a spokesman for the Kremlin authority, they will now be replaced by a "luxury hotel in the highest category," high-end apartments and a world-class auction house meant to compete with Christie's and Sotheby's.

A financially strong investor has also been found, St. Petersburg banker Sergei Pugachev, a man with two traits that are especially valuable to Moscow's powerful. He is as loyal to the Kremlin as he is publicity-shy. With his flowing beard, Pugachev, the former head of Mezhprombank, looks like a reincarnation of the reactionary Czar Alexander III, during whose reign the Trading Rows were built.

Another supporter of the Red Square project is a woman who often shows up when government contracts beckon. Her name is Lyudmila Narusova and she is the wealthy widow of the former St. Petersburg mayor and one-time Putin boss Anatoly Sobchak, who died in a hotel in 2000. Considered a nuisance at the Kremlin, Narusova nevertheless enjoys wide latitude, probably due in part to her intimate knowledge of the many details of major and minor corruption in her now deceased husband's city administration.

Narusova, who often wears heavy gold jewelry and is the mother of glamour girl Xenia Sobchak, is a senator in the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament. As chair of the "Commission on Information Policy," Narusova proposed launching an investigation against Novaya Gazeta, a daily newspaper critical of the Kremlin (the murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya had been a correspondent), to Russia's senior criminal investigator last October. According to Narusova, the paper had turned public opinion against the Red Square construction plans with its "attacks."

Startled by the media attention given to the clandestine demolition project, the office of the chief public prosecutor in Moscow, Russia highest-ranking investigative body, has now instructed a prosecutor to look into whether a permit was issued and whether the buildings were listed as historic landmarks. In an internal memo obtained by SPIEGEL, the Moscow historic preservation office confirms that the buildings were indeed under its supervision.

In addition, dozens of permits from a wide range of government agencies are required for construction projects in the downtown area -- permits the Kremlin administration apparently didn't bother to obtain. Although the prosecutor was instructed to "carefully examine" the circumstances surrounding the demolition, there is a strong possibility that the investigation could be quietly terminated.

But even if the domestic authorities pose little threat to officials at the Kremlin, they could face uncomfortable questions from the United Nations. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which includes Red Square on its list of World Heritage sites, is having its Moscow office prepare a detailed report on the disappearance of the historic buildings.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan