New business centre in St Petersburg remains contraversial
Before 2007, Okhta Centre was called Gazprom City and was promoted as such in Russian and St Petersburg news media, but from the start the project was a contentious issue, due primarily to the fact that the development calls for a massive tower to be built in its centre, a tower that will be the tallest in Europe and one of the largest in the world.
St Petersburg is the most significant Russian city after Moscow, it is part of the Russian economies backbone and the second largest city, it is also an iconic city for its historical role as the imperial capital of Russia before the revolution, and for the mammoth siege it withstood during the Second World War, one of the longest of its kind in modern history.
These are just some of the reasons St Petersburg is famous, iconic and extremely popular with domestic and international tourists. It has a special place in the heart of Russia, is an example of where we’ve come from and is a place of pride for its role in WWII. When St Petersburg announced that a major business centre would be built in the city it therefore made national news and was of great interest to many.
The business development itself will benefit St Petersburg in many ways, encouraging investment and leading to job opportunities, while reinforcing St Petersburg’s position as an emerging global city with world class infrastructure. But, the 400-plus meter tower to be built at the heart of the development has courted opposition.
The first voices of dissent came from outside Russia, UNESCO, the agency that oversees global World Heritage Sites warned that the project might be detrimental to the city’s integrity as a historically significant attraction and, according to St Petersburg news reports, warned the local government against approving the development.
In 2007 two significant things happened, the World Monuments Fund declared that the tower would not only ruin the iconic St Petersburg skyline, but also placed the city on its list of 100 Most Endangered Sites, during the same year, St Petersburg news media reported that the development’s name had been changed from Gazprom City to Okhta Centre.
Gazprom said the name change was to reflect the importance of the Okhta River, just as the business development will be important to the city, but it was also a public relations move, as opposition to the tower grew, it became impolitic to have it known as the Gazprom Tower, though this has not stopped residents of St Petersburg referring to the proposal as the ‘gas-scraper’, due in large part to Gazprom’s position as the largest natural gas extractor in the world.
Its subsidiary, Gazprom Neft, which was created as Sibneft, is the oil arm of the massive company and is the primary investor in the project, which is expected to cost around 60 billion rubles or US$2.5 billion.
When the project was first announced, it was supported by Valentina Matviyenko in St Petersburg news media, but the government in the city has since distanced itself from the project.
Initially the local government was a major investor in the project, but reduced its funding to 49% of the total cost in 2007, this was later reduced yet further to just 22%.
In 2008 Matviyenko told St Petersburg news media that the city would delay its investment through the first half of 2009 due to the financial crisis and in late 2009 it sold its stake in the development to Gazprom Neft for $3 billion. The city government said that this was due to the financial crisis and the city deficit.
“Due to the financial crisis, there is a need to channel the money to more important infrastructure projects. The cash will replenish the 2010 city budget,” Eduard Batanov, a St Petersburg official in charge of city financing told Reuters at the time.
But, the move may have also been aimed at distancing the local government from opposition, which recently saw 3,000 people turn out in the city to protest the tower’s construction. The development is taking place in Okhta, a historically sensitive area and will completely dwarf the Smolny Cathedral, in front of which it is being built. The cathedral is a 18th century architectural masterpiece, as are many of the buildings in the area.
In an apparent nod to the historically-minded, the tower’s designers have used two ancient Swedish fortresses called Landskrona and Nyenschantz as their inspiration and envision a tall twisting ivory tower visible from all over the city, a monument to Russian prestige and Gazprom’s national significance.
The billboards that have been erected around the development sight contain the word’s “Okhta centre is a project of the 21st century”, an apparent message to the people of St Petersburg that it is time to modernize their city and let it step into the future.
Opponents have vowed not to let this happen.
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St Petersburg Focus
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New business centre in St Petersburg remains contraversial
Okhta Centre has become one of the most contentious development projects in all of Russia. It is a project that offers St Petersburg two options that can’t be matched, either to embrace the modern world and allow a world-class business centre to be built, or maintain the city’s historic skyline, architecture and reputation as a major tourist destination with huge historical significance.
Before 2007, Okhta Centre was called Gazprom City and was promoted as such in Russian and St Petersburg news media, but from the start the project was a contentious issue, due primarily to the fact that the development calls for a massive tower to be built in its centre, a tower that will be the tallest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. Read more
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