Unesco Allow Liverpools World Heritage Disaster, but what will they do about St Petersburg.

I am not to do a lot today other than to say that a campaign in Russia is gathering momentum.
It seem that unlike the inactive and pathetic spirit of the local populace that let Unesco wash their hands of Liverpool is not about to happen in St Petersburg.
http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/10/gazprom-rmjm-okhta-tower-st-petersburg.html 

Nemisis knows more than I do about it, and their efforts are tireless, please read their jottings and links.
http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/saint-petersburg-versus-gazputinburg/
Please take the time to read and if there is any representations can be made please do. I wish we had of got more assistance instead of having to rely on the pathetic local press with their half hearted stories while promoting in the business pages the very people who do the damage.

Please take some time to read the blogs down the right hand side in what is called a blog roll. I have tried to get a balance.
St Petersburg WHS, Gazprom, Okhta Centre, BD - and JG
HERE IS SOME NEMESIS  DID EARLIER I shall let them talk.
An update on the recent two blogs
http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/09/another-huge-erection.html

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/09/cock-up-or-conspiracy-gazprom-rmjm-and.html

Respected architecture critic Jonathan Glancey (above) has written in this week's Building Design of the violent clashes in St Petersburg, although without really apportioning the blame to those responsible (not, as far as I can see, the protestors but the thugs hired to prevent lawful protest).
Here's a link to further reporting and pictures on this (update Sept 13th)
http://www.reclaiming-spaces.org/news/
http://nastybrutalistandshort.blogspot.com/2009/09/blog-post.html
(Interesting comments on that one - although to read the only full version of the truncated comments quoted left on t'internet you have to read them in a blog not too far from this one!)
It is intriguing to see how passionate St Petersburg’s residents are over the Gazprom tower proposals
But we don’t do violence


11 September 2009
‘Violence at Gazprom tower meeting” blared a headline in last week’s BD. The occasion was a meeting in St Petersburg at which Gazprom and RMJM were lobbying to change a local zoning law keeping buildings to a maximum height of 48m. This led to a newsworthy clash between protesters, police and security guards.
How often do people actually come to blows over buildings in peacetime? Protest is certainly not uncommon, and yet even the threat, and then the sorry reality, of the destruction of New York’s Pennsylvania and London’s Euston stations, witnessed no violence I am aware of. Equally, many people around the world have been offended in recent decades by heavy-handed office buildings, bombastic hotels and any number of crass residential and retail developments. But although angry, they have kept their fists uncoiled and their powder dry....
Read more: http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=427&storycode=3148395&channel=427&c=1
But there’s been nothing quite like the Gazprom clash. When big business is threatened, it can and will fight hard, especially when supported by government.
Violence can rarely be condoned, but it is intriguing to see how passionate people living in St Petersburg are about their city. British architects might find this uncomfortable, but they can rest assured such passions are unlikely to spill over into violence in our own less demonstrative country.
Well, no, Mr G, violence cannot in this case be condoned at all; it seems, however, that peaceful protest is being stifled by the use of such violence
In this country we do tend to use the law and public pressure, but let's face it, it's up to small but determined organisations (see yesterday's blog on a SAVE legal victory) and individuals banding together in a common cause (see the linked blogs column for a representative sample) to carry the huge burden of protest at the never-ending threats to our historic environment.
Maybe we should get more militant.
I wonder what would happen if we did? Would riot police be sent in?
http://www.sapling.info/newsletter/200512_agnes.shtml