Economist.com Cities Guide: Moscow Briefing - August 2006

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Welcome to Moscow...

Moscow spends little money promoting its image abroad. But this is set to change: city authorities have announced a $27m, three-year promotional campaign to counter perceptions of the city as unfriendly, grey, dirty and cold. The scheme includes plans for more public events in the city, attractive new websites to lure tourists, and ways to improve ties with foreign journalists and the Russian diaspora in Europe. Many have welcomed the campaign. Irina Tyurina, a spokeswoman for a tourist group, expressed the problem in rather blunt terms: “Moscow is known worldwide as a great tourist destination incapable of accepting tourists.”

But Moscow’s image-sprucing authorities seem to have identified their first enemy: travel guides. Tourism officials were outraged to find that the latest edition of the Lonely Planet guide to Moscow mentioned widespread prostitution and corruption. This portrayal of the city, they alleged in August, was 15 years out of date. “This guide suggests that one can meet a loose woman everywhere in Moscow,” fumed Aleksey Shavlov of Intourist, Russia’s main tourist agency, “But this is not true!” There are murmurs about legal action against the publishers. “At least they did not write about gloomy men wearing fur hats with earflaps, and bears strolling along Tverskaya,” concluded a sardonic television report on the guide.

Under the influence

Moscow is in the throes of a property boom, with prices edging close to London's. But according to a recent report in the Moscow Times, it seems that buying an apartment is only half the battle; keeping it is another problem. Russian law contains several provisions that allow contracts of sale to be cancelled years after buyers have settled into their new homes. Most commonly, sellers try to prove in court that they were legally incapable at the time of the sale—in other words, that they were drunk.

So prevalent is this ruse that buyers are now reportedly insisting that sellers be medically examined on the day they sign the contract. But ingenious sellers are finding loopholes. A Moscow court recently awarded an apartment back to a seller who claimed she'd been in an alcoholic haze when signing the contract to sell her flat. The buyers had taken the precaution of ordering a health exam, but since the medical certificate wasn't issued on the day of the sale it was deemed irrelevant.

To further complicate matters, parties on both sides of a sale routinely try to dodge taxes by undervaluing the property in the official contract. Of course, if the sale is later invalidated, this backfires on the buyer: they can only recoup the sale amount stipulated in the official paperwork.

Bringing out the inner entrepreneur

Many of the Russian men who became oligarchs in the 1990s began as small-scale hustlers and businessmen on Moscow's streets. But these days the city’s young, ambitious types tend to pursue more stable careers in big companies. The trend has become so pronounced that Yuri Luzhkov, Moscow’s mayor, is launching a new programme to encourage young entrepreneurs to start their own businesses.

Under the scheme, young Muscovites will submit business plans, and the city will provide $4.7m to underwrite their implementation by established companies (and cover any losses). The programme is scheduled to last for three years.

On shaky ground

Warnings of structural threats to St Basil's cathedral, an iconic and colourful landmark that presides over Red Square, are common. Conservationists have long protested that the thumping vibrations from rock concerts in the square endanger the 16th-century cathedral. The latest fear stems from plans for number five, Red Square, a 19th-century building less than 300 feet from the church. Developers recently bought the site and plan to transform it into a luxury hotel with swanky flats, an auction house and a huge underground car park. Work is supposed to begin in 2007, with completion expected by late 2008.

Andrei Balatov, head of the cathedral's restoration commission (which has just organised a careful repainting of the building’s exterior decoration), argues that construction could upset the balance of subsoil waters and shake St Basil’s foundations. He is asking that the project be stopped, or at least re-examined. But Russian officials dismissed such calls in early August, insisting that the work would not affect the cathedral’s foundations.

Catch if you can

August 2006

Concerts at country estates

Until mid-September 2006

Although silence reigns in Moscow’s main concert halls each August, lovely performances are staged at various country estates on the outskirts of town. These estates have charming, intimate concert halls: from the small yet perfectly formed Ostankino theatre—built by an aristocrat for his mistress, a peasant actress—to the splendidly decorated Colonnade Hall at Arkangelskoye (pictured), the venues hark back to a forgotten era. The concerts are well worth the short journey from the city centre.

Concerts are held every Saturday and Sunday until mid-September in Arkhangelskoye. For further information see the estate’s website.

For concerts at Ostankino and Kuskovo, check listings in the Friday edition of the Moscow Times.

More from the Moscow cultural calendar