№ 57 (3207)

14.04.2006

One evening at the beginning of this month a remarkable incident happened to Mrs. Rozaliya Nurgaleyeva, the head of the newly established Department for protection and use of objects of the cultural heritage of the Culture Ministry of the Republic of Tatarstan. It was not very dark yet, as she hardly managed to evade a brick falling down from the wall of an ancient building. This house built in the 19 century on the corner of the streets Bolshaya Krasnaya and Malaya Krasnaya was to put on the list of protected buildings.

Yet Rozaliya Nurgaleeva did not oversee that many other bricks go on falling down one by one and a truck, which was ready to load them. So she understood that the "unapproved demolishing" of the building will be finished before the state will take it under control...

The lady showed her strong character, for which Russaian women were clamed by the poet Nekrasov in his famous poem. She called up the police and Mr. Rubin Abdullin, the rector of music conservatory (for the house belongs to this educational institution), and then she blocked the truck’s way with her car and entered the building. (Everyone concerns that it is as dangerous as to enter a burning house like in the same Nekrasov’s poem.) There were thousands of selected bricks ready for carrying-out and some unknown people, who informed the brave woman this house had no owner at all for sure.

Policemen came just around midnight. It turned out that they had seen this "dismantling" by day. Yet they were sure it was approved.

The confidence is really touching. The sight of a demolished ancient and obviously very solid building in the historical center of Kazan is usual, why should not enterprising people demolish a still standing house and why should the police pay attention at this... The City and State administrative boards of monuments protection exist, yet no monitoring of this monuments (photographing, expert examination of their conditions and so on) has ever take place: "No one proved if this house exists or not".

Before the 1000th anniversary of Kazan it would be a lack of political foresight to protect the real history. Old houses left by their inhabitants in the name of so-called "tumbledown buildings liquidation program" were destroyed rapidly. For restoring them would cost much more money, then building up a new "showcase" of the city. And, what is more important, powerful people would not be able to build houses for their commercial needs on the "golden" land in the center, if it would be occupied by old buildings.

The "monuments problem" was almost solved in the middle of the summer in 2005. The "free" lots with no habited houses were sold, often with a "state protected object". Yet this "protection" extended at best for a tablet on the front of the building... In short, 14 objects of cultural heritage were lost irretrievably, at 19 were ready to suffer the same fate (indeed the number should be more for there were no system monitoring).

So in the end of June the head of the Office of Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Tatarstan Mr. Kafil Amirov excoriated his subordinates and demanded to solve the problem of the destroying of monuments.

He also mentioned a house on the corner of Karl Marx-street and Mushtari-street:

- Famous Gala, the wife of Salvador Dali was born there! (In the same house a live classic of Russian literature Vassily Aksenov spent his childhood and youth). - М.Y.) How does the house look now? It is all covered with advertisement and then they are going to demolish it and build an ugly new "architectural masterpiece", which no one needs...

Indeed an "architectural masterpiece" is been built up near this house. The skepticism of Mr. Amirov is clear, yet the new building will have historical value.

For this "dwelling house with built in office and car parking place" will lay on the place of a historical monument - there were the wing of the Oleshkevich’s house, where the famous writer Adel Kutuy lived. Polish State protects the grave of the national hero, who perished in June in 1945, and the house, he left as a volunteer to go to the front, was destroyed in Kazan in the year of 60th Victory Day.

Just this house was put on the list of protected buildings of Republican importance in 1933. Yet it did not hold out till the Year of Literature and Art in Tatarstan, when it will be certainly promised to honor the ever memory of the fallen hero. Yet the decision of the department for protection and use of objects of the cultural heritage of Kazan says that it is a "common historical (in other words - an old one - M.Y.) building"...

Destroying of a monument triggered by a private person became the object of court examination for the first time in Kazan. Lilia Sattarova, an art critic went to the Vakhitovsky court to declare the demolishing illegal and to oblige to reconstruct the historical wing. Her own house lays not very far. And its owners have every reason to believe that it can also be destroyed.

Low machinery was activated. Most of the objects of the cultural heritage are under jurisdiction of the Office of Public Prosecutor of Vakhitovskiy district of Kazan, 9 criminal cases about destroying memorials are being examined there now. The investigator Marsel Badrutdinov told the reporter of the "Evening Kazan" some cases were "promising", yet there were no reasons to arrest somebody. With all this going on, the machinery of buying the land in the center of the city is known to the Office of Public Prosecutords:

- The land is sold for building it up, - Mr. Badrutdinov says. - If there is a memorial on it, a contract is signed up with the liability to save it. Yet it usually happens as follows: Till the contract is signed up, the memorial is already been "spontaneously" demolished or burned up, so it is not possible to rebuild it...

- So you can build, - I join him, - with no "burden", and you can thank the "unapproved demolishers". It remembers us a rule of ancient Roman criminalists: "Is fecit, cui prodest. — Done by the one who profits from it".

- Yes, of course! - Mr. Badrutdinov agreed and promised to find the ones who profit from it...

In short, they are ready to apply a "surgical operation". Yet it will not help the irretrievably lost buildings.

Marina YUDKEVICH.