well to discuss that i'm now joined by me col murawski anthropologist of architecture at university college london mr moore afghan's good to talk to you thank you very much for your time thanks for second interest in my work now you have indeed a very interesting field of study researching buildings bits been architecture city environment and politics in the context of post communist eastern europe what do you make of russia particularly moscow in this regard yeah i mean there's certainly a lot of politics in architecture and in planning in moscow today the been planning also the sort of the construction in the in the planning of public spaces has been elevated more and more into a kind of priority issue and as you said quite. interesting in the beginning there is also there's also a sort of there's a sort of a new wave of kind of social engineering as if there's a new wave. of a kind of desire that you can that you can engineer it's a second type of consciousness or a certain type of human being through architecture you know i'm a big fan of

a soviet era memoirs and almost all foreign there is at that time describe moscow as a gray gloomy a drab and welcoming city reach should be a historical paradox given that the soviet theorists explicitly asserted that environment was critical for shaping and maintaining ideology do you think that is chu do you think those unappealing aspects of the soviet the being ultimately played any role in in on demining of the soviet consciousness i mean i was never in moscow during during the soviet period i've seen those photographs. read memoirs and books. described i grew up in warsaw which is. when i remember sort of the last five years of the communist period and certainly was so is often described by especially by western sources as dr who as as bleak somehow receptive extremely gray i don't think the disk. entirely accurate and certainly there were there were

many places in the soviet cities in and search the cities which were very green which were which were full of life which were full of a kind of egalitarian publicness that actually is missing from those cities today well if you haven't been to most car of the soviet period but you worked a lot in moscow all five today how what terms would you use to describe this city well i mean i suppose the main trend in moscow in the last two decades. certainly has been has been the increasing of inequalities in the city has been has been the sort of rapid rise in income inequality in the city and this sort of turning of the city center gradually into this into this space for for rich muscovites in the pushing of the of muscovites further and further out of the center of the city so moscow is becoming a much more stratified place than it was before and if anything that process is going to be is going to be is definitely going to be exacerbated by the by the by

the so-called renovation project by the by the project of the destruction of the host ophira mass housing well it's really striking to me that you would that's the first thing that comes to you it comes to your mind in describing moscow because. urban improvements i said do not live it not limited to the city center in fact over the last year or so they have moved to the suburbs i mean i live in the suburbs and all the four parks around my house have been renovated to be very active participation of local residents the major improvement in terms of the playgrounds and other public spaces what makes you believe that it's all about the reach muscovites well i mean the i was talking particular about the city center and the fact that it is becoming harder and harder for people to afford to live in the center especially if they want to live in their own or if they're young or if the elderly so simply in demographic times the center of moscow is becoming richer and richer and. the suburbs are becoming poorer and poorer which is not to say that the which is not to say that the. since you authorities are completely neglecting the

periphery of the city there are many new parks that are opening without being remade. on this there's a sort of that he had the idea if occasion of the suburbs of moscow and indeed of much of russia but there's also a lot of there's a sort of parallel processes that are not necessarily that are that are more complicated than us or pox are also being closed old parks are being closed old green spaces are being destroyed while new ones are being new ones are being opened i think it would be very difficult for the mosque a cd authorities to close any part do you have any concrete example in mind because i being a resident of moscow i cannot remember anything of late well i was i went for a jog a few months ago to go to what used to be the former park of the sixtieth anniversary of the observer revolution and the park has been has been the former park this former enormous kind of green space of green greenery and water in the center of moscow has been closed in the last few years and is now being turned into the into

the so called island of dreams or the dream island city of paid for the puck so this is one example of a vast green space being decimated being closed off being fenced off and being turned into a kind of into a kind of putin is disneyland and then. a similar thing happening is happening to potentially to incur that's kind of that's cahill's on the other side of moscow where the cadets cahill's a sort of huge kind of. lung is potentially going to be turned into a kind of ethno well into the sort of ethnographic scans and so it's a definitely there is a there is an emphasis on green space on an improvement in the municipality but it's not as simple as that there's a lot of there's a lot of parallel process is happening well my impression has been that as the city authorities saying trying to remodel the at the center of moscow they're also adding and a lot of trees a lot of rag remarry it's you the central streets where those trees haven't been for quite some time i mean. i wonder if this skeptical take on of what is happening

. in the city with the main focus on how i make will it's becoming is really warranted because from my understanding and i take strolls in the city center quite regularly it's actually much more egalitarian than it was let's say you know five or ten years ago yeah i think you know i think that's also true i mean that's the only person that's happening to muster that was just the first one the name because i think these things should be understood first of all i mean i work and it's the things i work on the aesthetics of the city about aesthetics should also be understood first of all in terms of their economic and their kind of political function but but certainly and from this point of view today it's true that the effects of the my street the street renovation program that's been carried out over the last. decade in moscow has also been that has been as of democratizing function so on the streets where like the streets where my street was

sort of completed there's a whole bunch of new affordable cafes and restaurants open that's also true in parts of the most primitive even instead of where previously there were these kind of foreboding silos there's now the sort of supermarkets and there's and there's a more sort of democratic kind of slightly more got a tarion. agalloch tarion streets emerging but these are these are streets for consumers facade of middle class consumers that they're not streets from kind of from poorer muscovites from the suburbs of muster and they're certainly not good towards the vast migrant population which which exists in moscow but i mean even if you are just want to take a stroll i think nobody for beats people from any economic strata to get out there and take a walk anyway you mentioned statics and this change in appearance has become a running theme for a western journalist but they almost invariably file stories along the lines of yes moscow is becoming prepared. daunte lad to look full you do you agree with dad that

behind this new facade the russian capital is still a harsh and welcoming and ultimately authoritarian place i mean i don't find must go on welcoming even even in the slightest and i never found and welcoming and i've been going there since since the late nineties. i think there's definitely an element of i mean there is no doubt that the transformation of moscow and so far the city center and increasingly also the more per for a pot smoker is an incredible achievement it's one it's a very expensive achievement but it's certainly it's certainly led to sort of improvement and kind of sort of want to go has become at least in the senate and more and more sort of liveable place to use this kind of jargon but that doesn't mean that's all there is to it i don't think that moscow is necessarily underneath some sort of bleak kind of or third tarion kind of nightmare but certainly these these purses is

a more intense in moscow than they are elsewhere they don't they don't this this process of of the big improvement even though it is spread out to the regions is definitely concentrated in muska because any moscow can afford to spend so much money on making the second city center pretty and i mean ultimately the long term effects of this an improvement will take will take a long time to be measured because it's only just beginning so far the only things that we really have to go on. and this is for example k.b. stroke overall also the most community about if you when they when they when they when they want to sort of prove that this is the transformation of muscular successful they point to things like the number of selfies that were taken on the garden ring say before off to the blood goes to before or after the well they also of course how many how many people visited moscow last year is they also are used to support the argument the the income that many of the ak cafes or a local business is a getting from those improvements i think they did. pretty conventional you know

what i'm saying is just the so if it's only to say one of these things a very early days there in terms of sort of the income the business is made along to clear streets that will continue one that's the sort of thing that has to be made measured sort of a long time. uptick and the only other thing that we have to go on so far too is that both in both of the bigger actions that would have been muscular in two thousand and eighteen both the presidential elections and the mayor elections one third more people voted for both of them to put in as president and surrogates of the onion as mayor than they did in the last elections which was before this sort of this huge wave of blood goes through has to happen so so you know i'm sure that's not purely down to the. or what i'm saying is that so far we have relatively few statistics to go and we do have to you are considered the political implications of base a new wave of urban improvement i know that you said in one interview that the russian authorities are using these type of beautification for political reasons to

sort of strengthen their grip on power to placated voters to sort of fool them into believing that life is improving isn't that what any authority in any cd is supposed to do to prolong that mandate by improving the environment and reach people leave yes or no i mean i don't think i used those words exactly i don't think i have a i don't i'm paraphrasing you but meaning anyone but. yes but you did that you seem to imply that they were a kind of many people a being the russians into believing that life is getting better when in fact it's kind of questionable i mean it is questionable whether life is getting better whether wages are really increasing you know or whether with access to health care is improving whether the sort of foundational character of an infrastructure medical facilities are better or not all of that is not necessarily direct links to what the streets look like the streets are definitely getting but nice a quick especially in the center of certain cities than the quality of medical care is improving. however that's not to say that this is

a genuine achievement. and that this is some sort of particularly russian thing and this is it will particularly muska thing and this is another important point that what's happening in moscow at the moment is very much plugged into global trends is very much plugged into a new into a new kind of realisation. this is a capitalist economies that actually public space is important and public space can also generate profit so the current set of russian fashion for public space been ism is totally part of a global process it perhaps just takes on a particular set of russian characteristics in the context of moscow so none of these things so it's in the you know the high line in new york is quite a similar thing to that idea pockets also the sort of gift from michael bloomberg in the case of new york to. to a city which which is a public space but has also increased increased on value and has also pushed for a new yorkers out of the center of the city so certain you know the things that i'm what i'm talking about poor people being pushed out into the city what i'm not i'm

not talking about some sort of particularly. pathology i'm rather talking about the fact that with the current sort of municipalities of the current mayor of moscow is actually much better at plugging moscow into google purchases and global kind of economic trends perhaps than the previous may was well i'm a survivor after we have to take a very short break now but he will be back in just a few moments. you're producing a lot of oil and gas and our energy independent where big is in russia and saudi arabia but the point as you're making there is that they're actually losing money on every. camp

sundown camp for people that can't go. in there like so vampires. like safe housing and they don't have to talk about what they go through with us because we understand her daughter she was diagnosed with a very rare son sensitive condition if i get sunburned i feel she doesn't feel they should see him come. to talk to your son the brains are actually shrinking inside the skull gets thicker in the brain still small. the pain is indescribable it's feels like a really really bad chemical burn but it goes through your skin in your muscles only down to the bone. there is no relief. we're just not sure this is just.

join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to us of the world of politics for business i'm showbusiness. welcome back to worlds apart with me called murawski anthropologist of architecture at university college london mr murawski there are many people here in russia who can nag these new wave of our been improvements to the protest of two thousand and eleven two thousand and twelve in moscow and other big russian cities when the urban middle class took to the streets to protest against the results of the parliamentary elections as well as vladimir putin's intention to run for yet another term do you think in terms of political capital responding to those protests with increased in. spending didn't pay they didn't pay off politically i

mean i think. you know this is this is a point of view that you hear repeated a lot both in city of u.k. or american media but also i've heard it repeated many times in moscow by by my sort of into lucky to is that what's happening is a direct response to that question and there are these kinds of things i think there may be some some some some truth to to to the fact that this was a kind of conscious response. bed again it's not all that there is to it there was a moment when. the mayor was called had been removed and there was a sort of wave coming anyway and there was a global wave of kind of street improvement of public space improvement coming anyway so so i don't think that you can purely reduce that to to a response to the protests but in terms of political capital sure as i mentioned before. i didn't think that in the streets improvement hurts not neither. the federal government's popularity nor the mass popularity and the results of recent elections testified to that perhaps one of the most notable things to have

changed since two thousand and eleven is the system of government services particularly in moscow because. before our people used to wait for hours sometimes they sometimes even months to get the necessary documentation to kind of change that driving license or to enroll their kids into schools nowadays it takes a very short the mound of time you can do it in one place and it is usually done by a very friendly reception is who offer you a call for you while you're waiting knowing how these formerly communist country used to treat its subjects do you take that as a change of appearance or a change of philosophy. i suppose. what i mean i can't i'm actually this is one of the things i'm least qualified to talk about in detail because i'm not a russian citizen i lived in moscow for sixteen months doing my research but i and i saw these my documents places popping up all over town and people did talk about them as be. as being

a very convenient thing. and in general i suppose there is this sense of digitalisation and this kind of streamlining of bureaucracy which is beginning to happen and rusher and that's and that's certainly a conscious choice so i suppose it's both a change of appearance and a change of philosophy and a kind of practical achievement of some kind to but also this is a this is also a kind of global presence you have this kind of thing in in georgia for example too in which many house i was really instituted these kind of i mean you know he made me really is not fair trade and western process as a leader whose main concern is maintaining control over his population and when you put yourself in that position all five of the russian leaders the supposedly authoritarian russian leaders what's the point all investing anything in improving how the state interacts with the people unless you need them because i would think that it's politically dangerous people would get used to being treated with dignity very quickly and supposedly they will start demanding it everywhere i mean yeah

sure sure sure there's no you know these are all things the improvement of pavements and the provision of of more streamlined kind of happy smiling bureaucrats is something that's going to be that's going to be appreciated by people but neither of those things are reducible to the underlying political system these are things that kind of in a more esoteric tearing context and in a more less democratic context and sort of in many contexts in between there's more to it than you know there's more going on in russia than putin the provision of my of documents and as also there's also you know the free speech is being treated in that way and you know one of the things that are often so so i don't i'm not judging just not necessarily sure that you can make that connection and to be honest i've never heard anyone suggest that my documents on the stream on bureaucracy some sort of weapon of an authoritarian regime necessarily well there are many people who are such as that is also i report a response abide the authority. to the protests in two thousand and eleven two

thousand and twelve i mean you cannot isolate their status they they think should be taken in into context but overall i think i would argue at least that there is a movement on that on the part of the authorities to make the interaction between the state and the people much more humane than it used to be five years ago let alone fifty years ago in terms of public space there's a sort of there's a theory we would be nice during my research in these debates is that ideological debates because they meant which people talked about bugs that idea and one of the participants in the debates was it was a job difficult over of india and she made this extremely interesting observation in her view is that the idea of park my streets does produce a certain kind of freedom even though this freedom is produced through authoritarian means so my street program renovation program happens much more quickly and russia than it does for example in warsaw which is another city which i'm familiar with because the decision making mechanisms. these things to happen

move quickly with all of the with all of the sort of advantages and disadvantages that entails so even to now said and this is something that are going to go to heaven and other people from k.b. stroke i have repeated numerous times too as well as as well as people who are for the most committed policy that in a sense even though this is being done by with a retiring means it's going to eventually generate a sense of freedom a kind of a kind of democratic sort of civil society purely through the fact that people can meet in a park in this space which is right next to the kremlin and which used to be this is which which used to be the kind of sacred place so there is there is a sort of i'd quite an intriguing ideology emerging that you can engineer kind of liberty through authoritarian means yeah that's there that's actually marx a marxist claim taken to its logical and that your being your surroundings i mean it's a sort of weird mutation of marxist books is all different because marxists don't talk so much about freedom and they don't talk about with her terrorism either but you know sure there is a kind of like there is a sort of leninist logic that you mention. in the parkside idea couple of times let

me ask you a question about that as you mentioned it's like it'd just steps away from the kremlin and from what i understand you see it as a primarily a political project you said in one interview that it was the kremlin masses to the people telling them that they should be grateful just what makes you believe that i mean again this is i think this is an interview on c.b.c. which is that is a particular way but i mean that with us no i was saying about the death we know that there is to the park so there's definitely a political message to the pockets it is so it's a gift from the from this over and i previously worked in the palace of culture and science in warsaw which is thought in a skyscraper which was to put food as having been gifted by stalin to a grateful people and thereby also to ensnare them in a sense of power relation and a similar narrative was repeated about a lot of newton's idea there was a famous scene in two thousand and twelve when putin said be on your visit to the site as i did together so be there were lots of cameras all around them and putin

as if spontaneously suggested to be on you my baby would be good idea to build a pocket to give the first puck for fifty years to the people of moscow so there is this kind of quiet quiet sort of vigorous the articulated sort of gift of logic there is the politicization of the puck is not something that i'm doing it's been done by the i think it's legal or even there that there is a political symbolism here but i think the simple as that putin was putting into that is quite different from the way you're interpret that because. i mean from the russian point of view there is absolutely nothing distasteful about the politics that favors turning the prime real estate location into a public space rather than a porsche shopping district would have happened on the risk of yeah and i mean this is also because i grew and it was a case of i mean you know to be to be frank i'm. you know what it was so the idea of putting a park in the center of was or would be hard to be. people in work in the

municipality would be hard to convince to do that because because the fear of losing sort of profit income from this plot of land would be would be too great with other things on the discussion is changing too however it's also a mistake so this is perhaps an element of dissemination or or of kind of money predation if you like it's a mistake to see that the idea purely as a public space is co financed by private investors a big chunk of the idea that two restaurants this so-called seven star hotel which is being opened in the in the corner of that idea real privately owned a lot of a lot of the operations in the park are running commercially so it's not it's not appealed the public space it's not the purity of public space but there still are many our quality time opportunities there that are totally free of charge for it for the visitors and for for you know for the gas and for what i know more than ten million people visited that park since two thousand and seventeen so that's kind of shows you that you know the kind of inequality income inequality you talked about

before i don't think it's. a very much demonstrated in the ad in that and it's intended as your it is people do like that idea and people from different walks of life a lot of people young people who do go to the park and enjoy it however and this is fantastic there's no denying that this is it is an extraordinary achievement by a group of very determined people. within the municipality and outside of it who managed to sort of push this thing through a very reluctant sort of political and economic context doesn't mean that an equality doesn't manifest itself in various in various places in the park you know the if you want to eat in the restaurant or even in the so-called democrats the prized guster nonexempt you're going to fork out about five hundred rubles which is about sort of eight dollars nine dollars for a for a play to me which is a lot given the fact that what the average wage and moscow is today if you want to go to see the poll you would know the flight to moscow that flies over russia so the flight simulator attraction you have to pay eight hundred rubles to see that so . there's

a sort of segregation in the park that certain things are accessible to people namely being outside and just sitting in the park where a certain part of the park are new accessible to those people well but i mean this is after all no the socialist country i mean parks have to be maintained and. it's also have to make money on something i want to also ask you one more i guess it's kind of philosophical question because. i think the main difference between the soviet urbanism and the new russian urbanism is an explicit conceptual focus on the people rather than big structures as used to be a during soviet times that's why you have swings benches trees playgrounds appearing on central streets of moscow where they haven't been before. do you think do you take that as an important shift in perspective for you do you do you still think that it's something that perhaps is not worthy of being noticed i mean this is a huge discussion and this is one which is at the set at the core of my i'm trying

to figure out with my research sort of comparative you know any muster elsewhere mushroom potent etc etc i think that certainly there was a low about servia of an ism which was focused on the people both in terms of the provision of public spaces as well as of leisure facilities that were affordable in the census of cities and elsewhere the big difference the you know beyond just the discussion about public improvement the big distinction where servia of an ism is shown to be more for the people the post-surgery of an ism is precisely in the issue of housing in the you know in the course of era and subsequent it's rationing of the must housing program in large amounts of people who have that the quality of their living vastly improved in a short space of time they will mix together so there was a conscious effort made by by servia city of. those of social planning as well as an architectural planning of them and social groups were mixed together and there was a there was this creation of a new kind of servia sort of collectivity through this housing this housing is now

if the so-called renovation program happens literally going to be destroyed and it's very difficult to tell what the what the new kinds of housing that will replace the herself that will replace the most housing of. of moscow will look like but you know it's very unlikely that this housing will be as much for the people as a to herself so this remains to be seen well mr murawski let's talk again in a few years but for the time being we have to leave it there thank you very much for sharing your insights but that's thank you encourage our viewers to keep this conversation going in our social media pages and hope to hear again same place same time here and of all the party.

you know world a big part of newton's law and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks.

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