Shame on Gazprom

First in my  opinion the Okhta Social & Business Center is ugly and I´m sorry to say architecturally weak minded, and its ugliness and stupidity cast a shadow on the beauty and intelligence of St. Petersburg, Peter the Great must be turning in his grave.

I agree with Andrei Bokov, president of the Russian Union of Architects when he states


“This project is naive and aggressive; it is dull, it is archaic. Chinese cities are being built with buildings that are vastly more interesting and better than what you are offering. Your brains haven’t been turned on.”

Unfortunately St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko signed a decree exempting the Okhta Center from the city's height restriction law last month which opens the door to this aberration.

On top of this Gazprom awarded the construction of this stain on our blue skys to an Arab company who is known for exploiting it workers, In a recent 2009 BBC Panorama program, Arabtec was exposed as treating their migrant workers inhumanely. The program showed how Arabtec failed to provide its workers with basic amenities to live. The reporter covering these allegations against Arabtec nearly vomited whilst visiting the camps (especially Nad al Sheba Camp) as a result of the gross unsanitary conditions he experienced.

Documents which had been obtained by the BBC clearly show that a month previous to the television crews' visit, the Dubai municipality described the sewage situation at the site as critical. Arabtec had also been fined 10,000 dirhams,which is approximately £2,000, (what a joke) for neglecting hygiene standards and allowing sewage to overflow into accommodation used by workers.

To add insult to pain it seems that we the citizens  of SPB will be funding 49% the project being worth 10,000,000,000.00 AED which equals 2,722,347,672 USD the city of St. Petersburg would have a share of 1,333,950,359 USD, The population being about 4,661,219 would mean that each person would in effect pay about 300 USD.

I wish we could use this money to renovate the historic building instead and help the poor baboushkas.

I beg you Mr. Putin do something it is your city you love it for sure more than I do, call this towel head Riad Kamal and tell him to go back to his desert culture and veto this project since it is ugly and misplaced, the world will love you for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabtec

http://www.arabtecuae.com