Palace Square Skating Rink Ruled ‘Illegal’
By Galina Stolyarova
Staff Writer
Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
An elderly lady and a young man enjoy the ice at the Palace Square skating rink. A court has ruled that the rink broke the law. |
The Kuibyshevsky District Court on Tuesday upheld an appeal filed by a local business association and a pressure group against the installment of a temporary ice rink on Palace Square. The construction was declared illegal, and the court ordered the rink’s operations to be halted and the rink to be dismantled. The rink — the property of the Bosconeva private enterprise — had been slated to operate until March 15. The driving force behind the case was Living City, an informal movement of local residents united by the idea of preserving St. Petersburg’s historic center in its integrity, and the St. Petersburg Association of Small and Medium Business Entrepreneurs. The verdict obliged City Hall’s Committee for the Preservation and Protection of Historical Monuments and the Russian Federal Mass Communication and Cultural Heritage Inspectorate to “take all necessary measures to remove the rink which is in the way of public access to one of the richest collections of cultural valuables in Russia.” The ruling referred, in particular, to the world-renowned State Hermitage Museum, as well as to the famous Alexander Column, the focal point of Palace Square. The plaintiffs argued that the ice rink infringes public access to the monuments, despite the fact that its construction had been approved by City Hall’s Architecture and Construction Committee and the Committee for the Preservation and Protection of Historical Monuments. Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky has been one of the most outspoken critics of the project since the idea was first voiced in late 2007. “The opening of the venue on Palace Square is a sad event indeed as it proves yet again how the term ‘cultural capital’ no longer applies to the city of St. Petersburg,” Piotrovsky has said. The 5,000 square-meter rink was the brainchild of Moscow businessman Mikhail Kusnirovich, head of luxury retailer Bosco di Ciliegi, who first set up an ice rink on Moscow’s Red Square in 2006. The St. Petersburg rink is one-and-a-half times bigger than the Red Square facility. Yulia Minutina, an activist with Living City, which threw its weight behind the case, spoke with amazement and enthusiasm about the verdict. “I must admit we were extremely surprised by the court ruling in our favor,” Minutina said. “Our hopes had been low considering the staggering scale of violations of rules regulating construction in the historical center. When a big investor is involved, City Hall inks the deal without thinking twice.” The rink welcomed its first skaters on Dec. 1. The opening ceremony was held with pomp, with Governor Valentina Matviyenko attending the event and even wearing skates herself. The rink is used by approximately 5,000 people every day, and has become popular with families and young people. As of Thursday the ice rink was still open and is likely to remain so until the court verdict is officially handed down to the operators. In a controversial statement on Wednesday, Russia’s Culture Minister Alexander Sokolov branded the Palace Square rink a “manifestation of provincial spirit.” “I would like to leave the judicial aspect aside and just offer my opinion as a person who was born in Leningrad and who feels very close to the city,” Sokolov told reporters at a news conference in St. Petersburg. “I feel insulted by this kind of provincialism that revealed itself in setting up a rink on the historic square. The only thing that makes it easier for me to tolerate is that the rink is a temporary construction and the ice is soon going to melt.” Living City criticized the governor for what they called “a policy of squeezing pennies out of every single centimeter of the city.” “When the administration stands to financially benefit, the bureaucrats easily sacrifice the city’s beauty,” Yelena Minchenok, another activist with Living City, said. “If it continues, views of historic St. Petersburg will only be found in old photographs.”
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