In St. Petersburg, heritage conservationists will be banned from re-disputing the status of monuments, and in Penza, the Ministry of Heritage Protection has been closed.
St. Petersburg authorities are changing the law on the protection of monuments: the new version will prohibit the submission of repeated applications for the recognition of buildings as cultural heritage sites. Previously, such applications helped heritage conservationists stop demolitions. In Penza, the relevant ministry was simultaneously abolished, transferring its functions to the Ministry of Culture.
What is changing in the St. Petersburg law?
At the instigation of Governor Alexander Beglov, deputies are amending the law on the protection of monuments in St. Petersburg. The new version will prohibit repeated applications for recognition of buildings as cultural heritage sites. Previously, this helped heritage conservationists stop demolition: while the application was being reviewed, all work on the disputed site was suspended.
According to government statistics, over the past 11 years, approximately 600 applications have been submitted for recognition of buildings as cultural heritage sites. Of these, almost one in three are duplicates.
Under the new law, a repeat application will only be accepted if it contains genuinely new information that could impact the final decision on whether to save the building.
How the deputies voted
In the first reading, the initiative was supported by the majority of local parliament members, including Communist Party representative Alexander Rassudov, who previously headed a construction company. According to him, the practice of re-applications has been adopted by "certain radical groups" and "urban preservation politicians."
Deputies from the Yabloko faction, on the contrary, stated that the new rules could complicate public oversight of the protection of historical and cultural heritage.
The Ministry for the Protection of Monuments has been liquidated in Penza.
And in Penza at all eliminated The Ministry for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments was closed. Its head, Alexander Ponyakin, was instructed to "notify employees of their dismissal." At the same time, the Ministry of Archives was closed in the region. The powers of both agencies will be transferred to the Ministry of Culture.
One local heritage activist, speaking with NeMoskva, suggested that this could be due to simple budgetary savings and would negatively impact the preservation of monuments.
A similar precedent: Yakutia, 2023
A similar decision to liquidate the Department for the Protection of Cultural Heritage was made by the Yakut authorities in 2023. The republic's prosecutor's office deemed this a violation of federal law, which stipulates that the protection of cultural heritage sites should be carried out by separate executive authorities.
Despite the prosecutor's demand that the guilty officials be held accountable, the department was never reinstated. Its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Culture and Spiritual Development.
