“When I just moved here, in 1989, my little daughter and I went together to the Krasnaya Gorka fort. I started climbing concrete debris in the blown-up casemate and got stuck. When I shone forward, I saw what made me work on the fort all life…
Six rows of metal racks appeared in front of me, on which the shells lay. Jelly flowed out of them, frozen in time, spreading on the floor and embracing the metal structures. It was shimosa, a compound 1.5 times more dangerous than any other explosive. I was shocked to the depths of my soul, I literally saw pictures of war in front of me! "- recalls the chairman of the military-historical society" Krasnaya Gorka "Alexander Senotrusov.
RED IS BEAUTIFUL
This is exactly the case when forgotten meanings of words describe reality with amazing accuracy. Fort "Krasnaya Gorka" is located in one of the most prestigious and demanded places for building in the Leningrad Region, on the shores of the Gulf of Finland, surrounded by coniferous forests.
View from the fort to the Gulf of Finland
Central Naval Portal
The unique fort is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as a monument of regional significance - not only numerous buildings and fortifications, but also weapons from the times of war, are perfectly preserved on the "Krasnaya Gorka". At the same time, part of the fortifications was cleared and restored, and local activists created a history museum with rare exhibits.
Every week, the fort is visited by many guests, historical and cultural student meetings are held at its base, children's circles work, in which teenagers are engaged in the study of history and the restoration of ancient weapons.
However, the existence of the fort has always been fraught with struggle and considerable difficulties. An advantageous location, dense forests and perfectly preserved imprints of history do not leave anyone indifferent.
NEW THREAT
The fort, built in 1909, was an important participant in many conflicts. Among them are the February Revolution, "Winter War" and the Great Patriotic War.
Fort "Krasnaya Gorka"
Central Naval Portal
It was here that after the war the first coastal complexes of anti-ship cruise missiles were put on alert, and the first railway artillery battalion was formed here.
The combat service of "Krasnaya Gorka" came to an end in 1962, when the dismantling of the guns began in the fort. The long process of demining - removing the battery's ammunition from the ground - began only in 2004.
Having survived the Civil War, facing the threat of the British fleet and the war machine of the Third Reich, the fort bows its head to the Russian bureaucracy year after year. Over the past ten years alone, Krasnaya Gorka has repeatedly been on the brink of destruction, and has found itself embroiled in scandals and machinations of various officials.
It all started with the fact that by 2005 almost all the objects of the fort were decommissioned - about 60 different structures that currently do not officially exist.
A few years later, the fort almost lost and one of its unique weapons. For more than three months, employees of a private museum near Moscow tried to dismantle and take away the TM-1-180 artillery transporter. However, no work permits were received."Dismantling was carried out on the territory of a monument of federal significance, any movement of parts of which can be carried out only by order of the government of the Russian Federation," 47news quotes the words of Vitaly Kalinin, head of the Rosokhrankultura department in the North-West Federal District. However, local activists managed to draw the attention of the public and the authorities to the current situation, the dismantling was suspended, and the documents collected as a result of the check were transferred to the prosecutor's office. For a while, calm reigned in the fort.
Transporter at Fort "Krasnaya Gorka"
Central Naval Portal
Despite the fact that the military department has been cleaning the fort from the dangerous legacy since the beginning of the 2000s, a new stage in the long-term process began in 2011 and the Ministry of Defense signed a demining contract with the private company Baltika Outpost Plus. But here, too, there were some problems. Despite the fact that the company did not complete the work, officials signed acts and paid entrepreneurs 25 million rubles. A criminal case was opened on the fact of abuse of office.
Just a year later, in the process of demilitarizing the territory of the fort, the tsarist barracks, the galley and the sailors' club were inexplicably demolished. The chairman of the local military-historical society, overseeing the groundless destruction of the monument, wrote to the head of the Leningrad Region Culture Committee about the need to urgently respond to the destruction of historic buildings. "The heads of the Ministry of Defense took advantage of the liquidation of the balance holder 2001 OMIS Len VMB on April 1 of this year and formalized the write-off of buildings for dismantling," the message explains.
In the autumn of the same year, the key high-rise objects of the Krasnaya Gorka monument - the turret of the radar station and the observation post of one of the batteries - were also destroyed. The pretext was an alleged threat to local residents.
Fort "Krasnaya Gorka"
Central Naval Portal
“I don’t understand who sanctioned the systemic destruction of a historical and cultural heritage site in front of the residents of St. Petersburg and its environs for several years? does the process not interfere?"
It is probably worth noting that at about the same time in the nearby village of Lebyazhye, on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland, the authorities sold 750 land plots of 15 acres for illegal construction, including the territory of the reserve. The criminal scheme worked perfectly: land plots at low prices were provided to disabled people who, for a small fee, transferred it to a group of people selling land at market value.
The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case. As of 2013, the case included, among others, three district leaders, including the former head of administration, as suspects.
NEW ACTORS OF THE BALTIC THEATER
New activity at the fort began at the end of 2014, almost simultaneously with the change of the head of the local administration. The post was taken by Alexey Kondrashov, who earlier worked for several years together with the current head of the Property Relations Department of the Ministry of Defense Dmitry Kurakin in the administration of St. Petersburg.
With the advent of the new government, the "miners" suddenly resumed their activities at the fort. According to eyewitnesses, the workers welded up all the door and window openings with bars, began to fill the monument with excavators, justifying this by the continuation of work to neutralize the ammunition left in the premises of Krasnaya Gorka since the war. In the winter of 2015, the CVMP correspondent managed to observe the consequences of several days of such work.
Fort "Krasnaya Gorka"
Central Naval Portal
A month later, the local administration received a document from the Department of Property Relations of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation signed by Kurakin on the beginning of the transfer of military forests to municipal ownership. According to Voennoye. RF, several sources familiar with the situation and wishing to remain anonymous, it was planned to transfer to the municipalities, including 450 hectares of Fort "Krasnaya Gorka" and 108 hectares of Fort "Gray Horse".
At the same time, the Department of Culture of the Ministry of Defense, which should have been interested in the fate of the military monument, reported that "the decision on the transfer of land is taken by the Department of Property Relations of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation."
FOCUS OF THE RADIOACTIVE CIRCUS
In the middle of summer 2015, truly mysterious events began to take place at Krasnaya Gorka.
On July 30, journalists with cameras and specialists with dosimeters suddenly appeared on the beloved TM-11180 transporter, who registered radioactive contamination that had just appeared suddenly. A certain Artyom Krivdin, a resident of St. Petersburg, who, according to him, is an amateur dosimetrist, told reporters about radiation and accidentally stumbled upon a point infection while trying a recently purchased dosimeter.
It is worth noting that the area of contamination was only 3x3cm, and it is incredible luck to find such a small spot on a huge 190-ton gun in the middle of the vast territory of the fort, located 60 km from the city.
By the way, despite the hobby of the Petersburger, the only record of radiation measurements that could be found on his page in the social network VKontakte is associated with the Krasnaya Gorka fort. "To those who recognize the place - radioactive dust as a gift! The frame shows 6,510 microroentgens per hour on board the platform," reads the caption.
In an interview with the correspondent of the Central Military District, the chairman of the military-historical society "Krasnaya Gorka" explained that the place where the radiation was found stood out on the conveyor: it was cleaner and "as if it was painted on top with varnish."
"In mid-July, we held a work shift. In the evening, one of the guys ran up to us and told us that a man was taking apart something on a gun. We got on our bicycles and drove to the memorial. At the entrance, I noticed a guy running away. I caught up with him., but he had nothing in his hands, so I just let him go, "the historian said. He clarified that it was this young man who later came with the journalists and showed them where to "measure".
The next day, when the Chemical Laboratory of the Leningrad Region arrived at the site, the pollution disappeared no less mysteriously.
However, the series of unexplained events did not end there. In early September, a second contamination appeared at the fort, already 30x40 cm in size. Eyewitnesses of the sudden occurrence of repeated radioactive contamination turned to law enforcement agencies with a request to initiate a criminal case.
In order to clarify a little, it is worth explaining that in the event that specialists fix the excess of the permissible level of radiation, the fort would be sealed, and the commemorative instruments were sent for melting to the complex for the processing and disposal of radioactive waste in Sosnovy Bor. Thus, it can be assumed that someone deliberately sought the closure of the fort.
PAPER INSTEAD OF SHELLS
Once "Krasnaya Gorka" was an impregnable fortress with tons of lead arguments and the unyielding will of the garrison's defenders. Today, the fortifications of the fort are guarded only by papers that have, however, international status.
The fact is that the cultural heritage site "Former Fort" Krasnaya Gorka "has protected borders of a monument of regional significance and is included in the UNESCO List of World Cultural and Natural Heritage Sites.
Protected boundaries of the Krasnaya Gorka fort according to UNESCO data
In accordance with article 50 of the Federal Law "On cultural heritage sites (historical and cultural monuments) of the peoples of the Russian Federation", cultural heritage sites included in the World Heritage List are not subject to alienation from state property.
In addition, cultural heritage sites are protected by the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. By signing the Convention, the country undertakes to preserve and protect the World Heritage sites located on its territory.
"Components of World Heritage Sites cannot be demolished or reconstructed," the UNESCO World Heritage Center noted. Thus, when carrying out any major restoration or other construction work on World Heritage sites, the States Parties to the Convention must notify UNESCO. However, no information was reported about the structures destroyed during the demilitarization work, which is understandable - most of the fort's buildings are currently decommissioned. Officially, these structures do not exist, which means that it is impossible to destroy them.
ELECTORAL MEMORY
What are the constituents of the fort in terms of securities? According to a document received by the TsVMP from the Committee on Culture of the Leningrad Region, the fort officially includes a dugout with an artillery battery command post and a shelter for artillerymen, a mass grave of Soviet sailors and soldiers of army units who died in 1919, 1921, 1941-1944 years, a platform on which five artillery pieces for various purposes are installed, a stele monument and an anchor monument.
It is these objects that make up the memorial complex "Former Fort" Krasnaya Gorka ", included in the UNESCO World Heritage List and have protected borders. The very same land plot of Fort" Krasnaya Gorka ", as well as the military town No. 7 located on it, are registered by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation …
At the same time, according to the data of the "North-Western Territorial Administration of Property Relations" as of September 1, 2015, the military town No. 7 was considered for transfer to municipal ownership.
In fact, about 40 buildings and structures have survived on the territory of the fort. The most interesting thing is that as such a dugout with a command post for the shelter of artillerymen on "Krasnaya Gorka" does not exist, but the Committee forgot to mention other parts of the monument.
Among them:
- 3 batteries: 6, 10 and 11 inches;
- 2 batteries: 12 "open and 12" turret, which currently belong to the arsenal of the Navy;
- 5 batteries with command posts and shelters, with courtyards for guns and underground casemates for personnel and ammunition;
- ground defense of the fort with a length of 1,700 meters, represented by 5 underground barracks, 17 shelters for cannons and machine guns along the front line, a machine-gun armored caponier;
- shaft of internal land defense;
- 2 barracks of internal land defense, one of which houses the museum of the military-historical community "Krasnaya Gorka";
- a half-destroyed brick barracks of artillerymen;
- 5 small powder magazines;
- mine searchlight station;
- remote command post of the Izhora fortified area;
- naval car garage;
- garage of the air defense division;
- positions of armored trains "For the Motherland" and "Baltiets";
- diesel generator with battery charging casemate;
- underground radio station for receiving long waves;
- wooden infirmary house;
- bath and laundry plant;
- the foundation of the Church of Mary Magdalene;
- railway water-pumping station, as well as buildings of railway stations for the Alekseevsky and Krasnoflotsky forts.
Fort "Krasnaya Gorka"
Central Naval Portal
Historian Alexander Senotrusov sent this information, accompanied by photographic materials, with a request to include objects in the list of structures of "Krasnaya Gorka" to various departments. Some of them reassured the activist with new laws and regulations, others forwarded documents to neighboring departments, and some did not answer at all. The situation itself has still not gotten off the ground, except that these ghostly structures have become much smaller over the past years.
At the same time, the director of the military-historical society "Fort Krasnaya Gorka" has been trying for many years to officially formalize the museum on the territory of the monument by means of inquiries to the Committee on Culture and the Department of Property Relations of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, which is responsible for this plot of land. However, all these attempts have not yet brought tangible results.
The Department of Culture of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, which is responsible for the preservation of cultural heritage sites under the jurisdiction of the military department, told us that they had not received any requests for museumification of the fort."We provide our military administration bodies, which are in any way connected with the use and preservation of cultural heritage sites, purely methodological assistance. We have not received any requests regarding the preservation of this object," said Olga Fuller.
WHEN FARS BECOMES A TRAGEDY
With the signing at the end of 2014 by the President of the Russian Federation of amendments to the Federal Law "On objects of cultural heritage (historical and cultural monuments) of the peoples of the Russian Federation", citizens and organizations have the opportunity to rent monuments. At the same time, the object itself must be in an unsatisfactory condition, and it must be restored within a period of up to 7 years.
In the case of "Krasnaya Gorka", there really is something to restore - these are burned down officers' houses, and barracks, and numerous outbuildings.
"Unused objects of cultural heritage included in the unified state register of objects of cultural heritage (historical and cultural monuments) of the peoples of the Russian Federation, which are in an unsatisfactory condition, related to federal property, by decision of the federal executive body authorized by the Government of the Russian Federation, may be provided to physical or leased to legal entities for a period of up to 49 years with the establishment of preferential rent, subject to compliance with the requirements established by this article, "the Federal Law says.
With the introduction of new standards, clever schemes for the purchase and lease of elite plots and objects by interested parties have appeared. One of the most common schemes is the conclusion of a lease agreement with one of the persons affiliated with the official for the subsequent sub-lease of cultural heritage objects at commercial value. All relationships in the chain are usually informal. At the same time, as noted in the report of the All-Russian Anti-Corruption Public Organization "Clean Hands", the controlling official can receive from 30% to 50% of the profit received from the sublease of objects.
Another scheme is to deliberately bring a cultural heritage object to a state that cannot be restored or requires major repairs. As noted by the legal organization, this option is most often used for the purchase of elite land plots by large commercial organizations.
"A cultural heritage site located on a commercially attractive land plot … is deprived of this status and sold to this commercial structure at a reduced market value as actually subject to demolition. As a result, commercial development appears on the site in the form of office buildings, parking lots, etc.", - according to the report of the organization.
Speaking about this scheme, a mysterious episode with radioactive contamination involuntarily comes to mind.
The Department of State Protection, Preservation and Use of Cultural Heritage Objects of the Committee for Culture of the Leningrad Region is responsible for the preservation of the cultural heritage objects of Krasnaya Gorka.
"We will look at who it is transmitted to and on what conditions," said the head of the department, Andrei Ermakov, in an interview with the Central Military Hospital. According to him, the land can be transferred into ownership, but with those restrictions and encumbrances that are spelled out in the Federal Law "On Cultural Heritage Sites".
CONTINUED STORY
Back in 2007, the Department of State Control over the Preservation and Use of Cultural Heritage Objects of the Leningrad Region noted that "on the territory of the fort there are numerous concrete, earthen, brick, and wooden structures with signs of historical and cultural heritage."At the same time, according to the conclusion of the department, it was necessary to carry out work "on the survey, determination of borders, protection zones, regimes of maintenance and use of both a regional monument and an object under the protection of UNESCO."
On April 10, 2015, the fort finally received the protected boundaries of a monument of regional significance. However, most of the existing structures of the fort have not yet been designated as part of the memorial complex.
It is not easy to find an explanation for this, because according to Article 48 of the Federal Law "On Cultural Heritage Sites", the owner of the cultural heritage site takes on the burden of maintaining it. In addition, the owner of the object is responsible for its preservation, including restoration.
Until January 1, 2016, the territory of the fort was protected by the government's ban on the approval of transactions related to the disposal of land plots in federal ownership (Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 03.04.2008 N 234 "On the provision of housing and other construction on land plots in federal ownership "). However, at the end of November last year, this ban was extended from January 1, 2016 to January 1, 2021.
It would seem that you can breathe out calmly, but amendments should come into force in June 2016, according to which the above-mentioned ban will not actually apply to land plots that are part of urban-type settlements. "Krasnaya Gorka" refers to the urban-type settlement Lebyazhye. Thus, this law will no longer be able to protect the fort.
However, from the beginning of October, another law comes into force - on the protection zones of cultural heritage sites.
The protection zone of a cultural heritage object is the territory adjacent to the monuments included in the unified state register of cultural heritage objects. Within the boundaries of such a zone, construction and reconstruction associated with changes in such parameters of buildings as height, area and number of floors are prohibited. The exception is the construction and reconstruction of linear facilities.
For objects located within the boundaries of settlements, such a zone will be 100 meters from the outer boundaries of the territory of the monument. For monuments located outside of settlements, the protection zone will be 200 meters.
With the entry into force of the new federal law, it can be assumed that even decommissioned, officially nowhere listed objects of the fort will be safe.
In addition, a source in the administration of the Lomonosov region informed the Central Military District of the Ministry of Defense about a new resolution of the Ministry of Defense, according to which the transfer of military lands to municipal ownership should be stopped. The editors failed to obtain documentary confirmation of the introduction of this resolution.
Nevertheless, today there is still a very real danger of destroying the fort. As historian Alexander Senotrusov told in an interview with TsVMP, a real threat to the fort remains to deliberately bring it to a state that cannot be restored. Radiation contamination is a good example. In order to at least slightly protect the monument from such a fate, members of the military-historical society "Krasnaya Gorka" decided to move the cannon to its 1975 museum site. Thus, the objects of the monument will be located on a wider area and attackers will have to try to achieve their goal.
"We have doubled the third courtyard, widened the entrance to it so that a truck and a crane can enter. We will put a 130 mm B-13 gun in this place," said Senotrusov.
This is how the fort and its inhabitants live - in an endless struggle for every grain of living history.
