The scandal of the demolished Trade Rows on the Red Square seems to be getting international response. Yesterday, the 32nd session of World Heritage Committee by UNESCO started in Quebec, where considered also will be the off-color project by the President’s Administration Affairs Department, or PAAD. The Kremlin’s logistics managers demolished four buildings of the ensemble by the architect Klein so that to construct a hotel-and-shopping complex de luxe, with the view to Spasskaya Tower and subterranean garage facilities under St Basil’s Cathedral.    

This one is a rare case: the issue of Srednie Torgovye Ryady, raised by Novaya Gazeta, got a wide response and attracted attention by defenders of the cultural heritage, prosecutor’s office and – we have grounds to hope for that – by Vladimir Putin himself. It appears that the whole story is going in the way disadvantageous for the Kremlin’s logistics managers.  

Who is to be held responsible?

After Novaya Gazeta published the photos of the demolished buildings, the Russian representative office of UNESCO reported to their European colleagues. Not arranged with specialists building works in the protected zone, where the Kremlin and Red Square are situated, was just an unprecedented event in the world practice. Considering the opinion by Russian experts and architects saying that any subterranean works might cause motion of the ground under Red Square and affect the St. Basil’s Cathedral, the World Heritage Center applied to Russian authorities with a request of providing detailed information about the current status of the works done and about current condition of the Kremlin and Red Square. That was done on 16 March 2007. Then Russian authorities were given time till February to prepare a report about what is happening to Srednie Torgovye Ryady. This report is going to be heard in Quebec in case such a document has been prepared. According to Novaya Gazeta information, no additional observations have been made at the site during the year passed.      

All the works have been suspended at the site now. There is either no restoration works even on the intact perimeter building. All our attempts to get acquainted with the project of future restoring construction failed. It is only known that such a project exists.  

The initial offer of construction, presented several years ago and intending to build a monolithic tower instead of the demolished Trade Rows, does not appear to be considered any more. For some time, Mr. Kozhin, the chief of PAAD has been putting forward an idea that the previous buildings are to be restored in the form they were created by Klein. One might be glad for UNESCO that managed to have impressed Mr. Kozhin so much, jointly with indignant Russian public opinion. However, there is another circumstance to this story.      

In April 2007 the German magazine “Spiegel”, with whom Vladimir Putin has special relations, published a big material about impudent interference by the Kremlin’s logistics department in the historical image of the Red Square. Right after that, all the works about Srednie Torgovye Ryady were suspended and information came from PAAD about restoring of the demolished ensemble.   

Well, it seems to be different things: when Europe admonishes us with UNESCO mouth, we just do not care, but when Europe speaks directly to the President and says unpleasant things, there is a prompt reaction.  

It’s been almost two years since the buildings on the Red Square were demolished in a secret thievish way. Now it’s clear that PAAD lost the game. 

We do not require the documents that gave a sanction for demolition done, the documents hidden so desperately by Viktor Khrekov, the spokesperson for PAAD. Actually, there is an impression such documents just do not exist.

We only would like to know one thing – the name of the person who gave an oral or written order to destroy the buildings by the famous Russian architect Roman Ivanovich Klein, on a September night of 2006.  

If that man is no culprit, there is no reason for hiding. 

The prosecutor’s office failed to find the office of the firm – that’s OOO Srednie Torgovye Ryady – that was intending to invest 400 million dollars into commercial construction allegedly sanctioned by that-time president Putin. We also tried to find the firm’s address and we failed either. However, we managed to establish who the founder of the firm in question was – that’s Global Treasures Equity LTD, an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands.