After running the city like a personal fiefdom for years, Yuri Luzhkov has finally succumbed, writes DANIEL McLAUGHLINin Moscow
PETER THE Great seems to glower more furiously than ever these days from the deck of his bronze ship on the Moscow River, surrounded by a city that cannot wait for him to leave.
The 100metre-high monument to the mighty tsar is likely to be the next high-profile victim of major changes in the Russian capital, a city Peter loathed just as much as Muscovites hate his statue. It’s almost impossible to find anyone in Moscow who likes the looming effigy, but that didn’t matter while its most famous fan was running the city.
Yuri Luzhkov had already been Moscow mayor for five years when his court artist, Zurab Tsereteli, erected the colossus in 1997. Urban legend holds that the United States rejected the statue in its original guise of Christopher Columbus, prompting Tsereteli to attach a new head and call it Tsar Peter.
It has stood ever since as a monument to the unchecked power and vanity that ultimately led to Luzhkov’s downfall.
After running Moscow like a personal fiefdom for 18 years, Luzhkov finally succumbed a fortnight ago.
He flatly refused a Kremlin request to resign and so was sacked by president Dmitry Medvedev, who said he had lost trust in the veteran “boss”.
His departure seemed inevitable after state television, which is slavishly loyal to those who enjoy official approval, alleged corruption and incompetence in city hall and noted how Luzhkov’s wife had become a billionaire through her firm’s domination of the Moscow building business.
The couple denied such claims as yet another smear campaign by their enemies, but this time their critics were not the opposition politicians or the activists who have made such accusations for years, but someone even more powerful than the uncrowned king and queen of Moscow.
Luzhkov angered Medvedev this summer by criticising his decision to halt construction of a Moscow-St Petersburg highway through pristine forest and by suggesting that prime minister Vladimir Putin should return to the Kremlin in the 2012 elections.
The mayor was already on shaky ground for remaining on holiday while Moscow choked in smog from devastating forest fires and for allowing roadworks to paralyse swathes of the city.
If Luzhkov thought his cordial relationship with Putin would save him from Medvedev’s quiet wrath, then he was wrong. He had overplayed his hand, and the president made an example of him to those who imagined that he was too weak to take down one of the big beasts of Russian politics.
Untouchable for so long, Luzhkov was now denounced like a Soviet-era enemy of the people. Old allies now bemoaned his mistakes, colleagues came under investigation, and even Moscow’s gay community – whose parades Luzhkov banned as “satanic” – were allowed to march in the city centre. Suddenly, officials who had always praised Peter the Great were searching for a city to take him off their hands.
The removal of one monstrosity will not wipe Luzhkov’s mark from Moscow, however.
In transforming the once dowdy city into a gaudy, glittering metropolis, he destroyed hundreds of historic buildings, including many officially protected monuments.
In a move that may have been a misguided attempt to assuage conservationists – and one that further enriched construction firms – Luzhkov replaced many old buildings with sham replicas, destroying the city’s heritage.
“There were things that Luzhkov did for the city – cleaning up the streets and parks and improving public transport – that were positive. But in terms of architectural heritage he was a disaster,” said Clementine Cecil of the Moscow Architecture Preservation Society.
“He did not observe the law, he rarely listened to experts and therefore he imposed his own taste on the city.” Luzhkov’s temporary successor has already sought to soothe relations with conservationists, but no one knows who the next real mayor will be, never mind how he will run the city.
Speculation continues to swirl, meanwhile, over what Luzhkov’s demise means for Russia’s ruling “tandem”: Medvedev and Putin.
Some say Medvedev was showing the nation that he can make his own tough decisions, and telling Putin that he has no intention of standing aside for him in 2012.
Others insist that Medvedev would not have acted without Putin’s agreement, and that both wanted someone more reliable to take charge of Moscow’s €24 billion budget. They also note that the favourite to succeed Luzhkov is Sergei Sobyanin, Putin’s loyal chief of staff. Whoever replaces Luzhkov will come under pressure to review his controversial city development plans and to topple Peter the Great.
Peter’s creator, the artist Tsereteli, has his own priorities however. “There will be a Luzhkov statue in Moscow,” he insisted. “And if no one else wants to make it, I will.”