The Gazprom skyscraper in St. Petersburg is not even built yet, and it is already stirring strong passions

St. Petersburg - The skyscraper, which hasn't been built yet, has been stirring strong passions in St. Petersburg for several months. Experts from UNESCO and anti-government activists on Nevsky Prospect are protesting against the plan for a several hundred-meter-high building for the new headquarters of the state gas monopoly Gazprom.
    The construction of the complex called Gazprom-City was originally to be fully financed by the St. Petersburg city hall, but it was recently decided that Gazprom would indeed pay for 51 percent of its own building. The project is expected to cost about 60 billion rubles (around 48 billion crowns) and will take ten years to complete.
    In the history of financing this massive project, the St. Petersburg authorities fulfilled the Kremlin's wish with the promise to cover all costs. However, the main issue is not who will pay the bills, but the shape of the building itself, which is to include over a million square meters of office space, apartments, and infrastructure. According to the rules from the time of Peter the Great, no building in the city on the Neva should exceed the height of the angel statue on the bell tower of the Peter and Paul Cathedral located in the fortress of the same name. The tall golden roof of the bell tower, topped with an angel holding a cross, rises to a height of 122.5 meters.
    The original bold designs developed by renowned architects from around the world, such as Daniel Libeskind, the British studio RMJM, and the Frenchman Jean Nouvel, reached heights of around 300 meters. Now, only a height of one hundred meters is being discussed, while the tallest building in the vicinity of the Ohta River, where the skyscraper is to be located, is currently only 48 meters tall.
    St. Petersburg is known for its "horizontal" layout, experts remind us, and the head of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Francesko Bandarin, labeled the winning design by RMJM as "unacceptable." The firm succeeded with a 320-meter-high "aerodynamic pyramid" project.
    The director of the St. Petersburg Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky, regards the architectural designs as genius. "But built across the river from the Smolny Palace, they would just deform the historic panorama of the city," he said. "The general headquarters of significant companies cannot be located somewhere in the suburbs," proclaimed St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko. She also points out that Gazprom's offices mean significant financial income for the city.
    However, critics argue that the entire project is merely part of local native - President Vladimir Putin's - plan to enhance the prestige of St. Petersburg. Putin chose the city as the host for the G8 summit in 2006, and in 2003, the bombastic celebrations marked the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city on the Neva. Russian commentators also believe that Putin likely does not want to be remembered as the man who allowed St. Petersburg to be disfigured. "And so, once everything is signed for Gazprom-City, we will witness the final discussions among the council members on this topic. The president will come and personally reduce the height of the skyscraper on the plan five times with a pencil," predicts, for example, the economic newspaper Vedomosti.