Of the three reconstruction projects for Matrossky Boulevard in Sevastopol, the fourth one won

Sevastopol, December 20 (PolitNavigator, Alexander Kononov) - At public hearings on the reconstruction of Matrossky Boulevard in Sevastopol, three projects were presented - two by the Union of City Architects and one by the Strategic Development Agency of Alexei Chaly. The commission most liked the project that did not participate in the competition and was presented by a person from the audience.

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This person turned out to be the artist-heraldmaster Valery Rozhkov, who, unexpectedly for many, in a laconic and concise form, put into place everything that the City Council had been fiddling with for quite a long time, marking time.

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The very idea of ​​reconstruction began with a proposal from the Strategic Development Agency, voiced at one of the City Councils by deputy Vyacheslav Gorelov about a month ago. About six months were spent on these design studies. Moreover, at public hearings the main portion of criticism went to ASR.

Thus, one man from the audience was outraged that the representative of the Agency for Strategic Development, and part-time speaker of the project, turned out to be not from Sevastopol.

“You see. You tell us about the fifth - twenty-fifth, this one came from there, and we are from Sevastopol. We need to make sure we live comfortably in this city,” said a public listener.

In addition, he quickly decided that since the person was a newcomer, there would definitely be a “pub” on the boulevard, although the project did not say this. He also got it for the “pub” from a member of the youth commission of the Public Expert Council under the governor, who made it clear that from the point of view of patriotism he views such things with extreme contempt. When they explained that there was not a word about the “pub” in the project, he still continued to press his point about the patriotic education of young people.

“Did I say anything about a pub? Do I have to swear on blood that there will be no pub? Okay,” Chaly’s representative fought back as best he could.

“Are you an agency representative? Please tell me what the legal status of your agency is. JSC? OOO? Horns and hooves? Frequent business? State? Federal? – another listener attacked. The speaker confusedly explained that it was a “non-profit partnership.”

“The impression is that outsiders here are managing other people’s property,” said the listener, to which he received the answer that he was being presented with a project approved by the governor. In addition, the project “is being presented for the seventh time.”

The main idea of ​​the project, according to the speaker, is the proposition that Matrossky Boulevard is a “dead-end street,” from which it follows that “it is necessary to connect Primorsky Boulevard with Sinopsky Descent.” “This should be a single street that connects two fairly significant objects in the city and will be actively used by citizens for their daily needs,” he explained.

The second project - from the Union of Architects of Sevastopol - was presented by Natalya Beznos, noting that, unlike the previous one, “a little more than two weeks” were spent on the project.

Here the main idea, according to her, is that “the entire boulevard should be subordinated to the Kazarsky monument.”

"It is most important. Neither the forties, nor the thirties, nor the 19th century, nor the 20th. The whole decision of the boulevard is dictated by the monument. This is what we proceeded from. How it happened is another matter. This monument is recessed by half a meter, if not more. It needs to be excavated and raised so that it returns to its original proportions,” said Natalya Beznos.

In general, the project was carried out in a strict antique style.

The third project was also presented by a member of the Union of Architects of Sevastopol Oleg Artyushkin, who explained that “the project was developed within the framework of free design” and represents a subjective opinion, designed more for those who are familiar with architecture. This, according to him, is a kind of open conceptual sketch with which you can subsequently work in one direction or another.

However, the main criticism received was precisely the subjective idea of ​​the authors, according to which they see Matrossky Boulevard “as an art platform for holding various exhibitions, events, and the like.”

“We tried to integrate the object into the urban development. Local materials were used. We thought through the functional component. Firstly, these are facilities that provide free recreation,” Artyushkin said.

“I spent my childhood on this boulevard. I remember flowers, bushes, but here, to be honest, you can’t breathe. One tile. It feels like you’re just working for some tile factory,” a woman from the audience shared her impressions, and the luminary of Sevastopol architecture, Adolf Schaeffer, supported the criticism.

“Why are you dividing the alley with a swimming pool? The third monument appeared on this alley. You haven't overloaded the whole thing too much. Then, you did not open the Kazarsky monument as it was before the reconstruction. There should be Sevastopol classics here. The previous version – everything was laconic, antique, simple. And this is all alien,” explained the architect.

The opinion of another listener differed from all others in its extreme originality. This was the chairman of the Sevastopol branch of Russian artists, Ivan Grishchenko.

“I really don’t understand what we’re talking about here. What will change if we make Matrossky Boulevard. The monument will move somewhere - I don’t understand one thing. We have been praying for a long time for an exhibition hall, which is not in the city and probably will not be. You are about to spend a lot of money. There's practically nothing you can do there. I no longer have any interest in you, as in some interesting organization,” Grishchenko almost shouted about his position.

“What is your question?” – they asked from the first rows.

“Will there be a hall? Will you tell me this? You are wasting your money. Money must be spent wisely. I think you are doing nothing. This is all nonsense,” concluded Grishchenko.

When it already seemed that public hearings were yet another dead-end path for the development of the City Council, which was increasingly turning into a discussion platform based on interests, suddenly Valery Rozhkov came up with his project for the boulevard, and in ten minutes he dotted all the i’s.

“The object is 177 years old, and if you don’t understand this, and make all sorts of walking areas out of it, use modern materials, then the meaning of the boulevard is completely lost,” he began with the main idea.

He “presented the problem areas and pitfalls that architects must address.” Among them is the “lack of lower alleys”, the problem of unifying the space from the Vladimir Cathedral to the boulevard itself, parking on this route, and with which it is not clear what to do.

“The fountain cannot be removed. It marks the historical location of the Moorish-style rotunda. The central axis of the boulevard should divide the boulevard symmetrically,” stated Valery Rozhkov. At the same time, he is the only one who clearly defined the boundaries of the boulevard, finally making the project concrete.

“If we talk about some new objects that were presented here - a boy with a boat, St. Andrew's flag - nothing should argue with the main and first monument of Sevastopol. This is also the first boulevard. The axis must be free,” the artist expressed a simple and obvious thought.

At the same time, he noted that “each of the projects has excellent solutions, but each of them has its own shortcomings.”

“I believe that all three projects need to be combined and a design task should be made that will lead to the fact that - most importantly - the style of the boulevard will be preserved. Not a remake, not hi-tech, but spirit and style,” Rozhkov concluded.

Member of the Town Planning Council Alexander Gladkov, who had been gritting his teeth from the very beginning of the event, was the first to inform the audience that they had a project.

“Valery Nikolaevich, your speech restored my faith in humanity, because the first three architectural projects were some kind of fragments. Finally we saw everything as it should be seen. We have a central alley, there is a left flank, there is a right flank. And we have the Sinop Stairs and the House of Social Studies.

I believe that we are wasting our time and have already spent a lot for one simple reason. You need to answer one simple question for yourself - where the boulevard begins and where it ends. I am convinced that it begins here and ends here. Thank you very much,” Gladkov said.

“Rozhkov presented a very good master plan. From it we can now understand all the origins of what needs to be done,” supported his colleague Adolf Schaeffer.

As a result, Valery Rozhkov was immediately included in the editorial commission, which was asked by the adviser to the governor of Sevastopol on urban planning and architecture, Alexander Izmodenov, who led the event, to develop the text of the decision. The text, he said, “will allow us to formulate the correct technical specifications.”

“We will have a completely precise plan of what we want to see, so that we can then initiate an open competition. Those. everyone will no longer come up with something of their own. We simply say what should be - first, fifth, tenth, twenty-fifth - everything. The line has been drawn. After that we say – the competition is the same for everyone. There will be three groups participating or twenty-three, but we clearly know what we will get in the end,” concluded Izmodenov.