Review of the problem "SW landfill in the Levoberezhny microdistrict, Khimki". A cemetery with a war memorial Talon will be built on the site of a landfill near Moscow on the left bank landfill
Residents of Khimki and Dolgoprudny near Moscow fear that the local landfill for municipal solid waste "Levoberezhny", closed in 2012, will again begin to accept garbage. Such rumors appeared after the aggravation of the situation around the Yadrovo landfill in the Volokolamsk district, and in April, residents began to notice queues of garbage trucks at the gates of Levoberezhny and complain about an unpleasant smell.
Portal Activatica.org talks about "panic" messages from settlements adjacent to the landfill. "Residents of Levoberezhny are in shock, as the residential area is located 750 meters from the landfill," the publication quotes. People write about dozens of cars at the entrance and post videos to prove it. There have been no official comments yet.
The Levoberezhny polygon closed six years ago, following numerous protests. After one of the actions, an environmentalist was severely beaten: they broke his skull with baseball bats, and they beat him so that one of the shells broke, the media wrote. Fetisov was in a coma for more than a month, then recovered for a long time. The investigation recognized Andrey Chernyshev, an official of the Khimki administration, as the organizer of the assassination attempt.
From 2008 to 2012, waste at the Levoberezhny landfill was disposed of in violation of all environmental regulations and rules. As a result, more than 40 million tons of garbage accumulated there. After the Ministry of Natural Resources intervened in the situation, the garbage continued to be transported to the landfill from the back side. AT different time they wanted to turn the landfill into a ski resort, a recycling plant or an asphalt plant, but the projects constantly faced environmental issues, long-term payback and dissatisfaction of citizens.
In early 2016, it became known that the Eco Industrial Company, which is engaged in the reclamation of landfills, proposed to the government of the Moscow Region to build military graves on the site of Levoberezhny. The authors of the project explained that it could become a "zone of attraction for the patriotic education of young people ".
The Minister of Ecology of the Moscow Region, Alexander Kogan, then assured that the authorities to the investor. According to him, four projects for the use of the territory are being considered, including an extreme park and a ski slope. A year later, in the Ministry of Ecology of the region reported that the investor will build "social infrastructure facilities" on the site of the landfill.
The reclamation of Levoberezhny, worth about 1.5 billion rubles, was planned to begin in 2017, but so far no work has been carried out there, the newspaper writes. "Coda". In some places, the landfill managed to overgrow with grass, and the dangerous leachate - "black, foul-smelling slurry" - after rain flows out to a public transport stop on Sovkhoznaya Street.
In winter, members of the Levoberezhny initiative group went up to the training ground with the permission of the authorities and on receipt of responsibility for their health (you can only be there in a respirator). According to residents, some internal processes are going on at the dump - the mountain is warm, steam rose from it. In addition, the body of the landfill is gradually “sliding” towards the Businka River, Boris Trushin, general director of the Spetsgeoekologiya company, which develops projects for the reclamation of solid waste landfills, told the portal. Some of the filtrate also flows there.
Cars loaded with household waste again enter the Levoberezhny solid waste landfill. For this purpose, not the central entrance to the landfill from the side of Likhachevskoye Highway is used, but the rear entrance, hidden from prying eyes. The garbage trucks come back empty. At the landfill, which is supervised by the Property Management Committee of the Khimki Administration, reclamation work is officially underway: only soil is allowed to be brought there. In July 2012 As part of the governor's program "Our Moscow Region" after numerous protests from local residents, the landfill was officially closed to receive garbage. However, what we saw during our last visit to the landfill testifies in favor of the fact that individual Khimki officials and the garbage mafia have their own point of view on doing business, and it clearly clearly does not coincide with the plans of Governor Vorobyov to reduce the number of garbage dumps operating in the Moscow region.
Since summer 2012 above the main entrance to the territory of the landfill, such beautiful banners flaunt, indicating that the facility has stopped its work.
But what happens at the entrance to the landfill from the back. The photos were taken by us at the end of last week. 
And now let's remind our readers the dramatic history of the Levoberezhny solid waste landfill, full of bloody and heroic moments
Driving along the Moscow Ring Road in the Left Bank district of Khimki, many of you daily see a huge mountain of garbage - the Leoberezhny solid waste landfill (MSW). This is an illegally operating dump that makes the lives of thousands of local residents hell. Back in the 70s and 80s this Khimki district could be proud of its ecology and was one of the most beautiful natural corners of the near Moscow region. It was with the emergence of this landfill and its subsequent thoughtless exploitation that many problems and disasters began in the region, which today is on the verge of an environmental disaster.
Solid waste landfill on Yandex maps.
The landfill grew rapidly. Founded in 1983. on the site of a quarry, after a few years it was level with the ground, and even then there were talks about its closure. However, the closure did not happen, and in the 90s, the mountain of garbage was already the size of a multi-storey building. At the same time, if earlier the landfill stood in a wasteland, far from residential buildings, then over time, residential areas approached it and it began to cause a lot of inconvenience to residents. Especially those whose windows overlooked her. As soon as the wind picked up, a strong stench flew into the apartments. Residents complained about unsanitary conditions, the number of respiratory diseases and oncological diseases was growing. Television came to shoot reports about the plight of the population more than once.
The situation became intolerable by the mid-2000s, when the landfill was periodically set on fire in order to compact the layers of garbage and increase its resource. At the same time, the first complaints of local residents went to the City Administration. However, the landfill, despite everything, continued to work. Waste storage was carried out with gross violations. The height of the landfill by 2009 exceeded the critical threshold of 50m, and the garbage continued to stay and stay, contrary to all sanitary standards.
In 2010, the landfill finally ran out of license. However, the period of his service again tried to extend. From this moment, mass pickets and rallies for the closure of the landfill begin. October 26, 2010 The Khimki city court decided to suspend its work due to gross violations of the law, which resulted in serious damage environment. However, the landfill did not stop its work for a single day. As the locals said, on the first day after the verdict, the garbage was brought in at night, and after that - already in the open. Numerous complaints from residents to the Khimki administration did not help. Only rallies near the walls of the Khimki administration, as well as pickets of residents near the landfill, which Khimki activist Konstantin Fetisov was not afraid to lead, stirred up the public. Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs then drove the residents away from the landfill, complaining that "everything is legal here." Although the residents came with copies of the court decision in their hands...
Then, during the picket, Konstantin Fetisov, the leader of the local branch of the Right Cause party, was detained. A day later, he was severely beaten near his own house, was in a coma for a long time and miraculously survived. The case of Fetisov's beating became one of the most resonant attempts on public figures in Khimki, along with the beatings of journalists M. Beketov and A. Yurov. Andrey Chernyshev, an official reporting directly to the deputy, was convicted of the attempt on Fetisov. Mayor of Khimki Alexey Valov. Be that as it may, the picketing of the landfill continued. Activists and local residents blocked the entrance to the Khimki landfill, which was operating in defiance of a court order. But it only helped for a short time. The dump did not stop its work for a day, caravans with garbage went one after another. In December 2011 The head of Khimki, V. Strelchenko, signed an order to close the landfill from June 1, 2012. But the decision remained unfulfilled. In the same June, residents again began to complain about the resumption of the landfill. Federal officials intervened in the case (the Ministry of Natural Resources is concerned about reports of the resumption of the work of the solid waste landfill in Khimki). And then, finally, with sweat and blood (in the literal sense of the word), with the support of the media, the dump was closed. The decision was made by the new governor of the Moscow region, A.Yu. Vorobyov, and the story about the closure was shown on Channel One. But also this highest decision landfill owners were not enough. In the same year, the landfill continued to work. An original solution was invented - to bring garbage from the back side of the mountain, hidden from prying eyes. By that time, the height of the mountain was already 80 meters, which is more than half the upper threshold.
The rudeness of the landfill owners is easily explained. The garbage business is a very profitable business. Supervisory bodies are few in number, and existing fines are insignificant. Working conditions are ideal. Therefore, in the Moscow region there is a huge number of illegal dumps. There are only 39 legal landfills for 1,300 illegal ones in the region. With which of them, only 15 can continue to work, since the resource of the rest is simply exhausted (including Levoberezhny), and they are not going to renew their license in the region. 15 landfills are not able to absorb 10 million tons of garbage from Moscow and the region per year. For reference, the Moscow region annually accounts for 20% of all waste in the country. There was even talk of distributing garbage from the Moscow region to other regions of the country. But as long as there are talks of these plans, garbage streams are still drawn to existing landfills, bringing fabulous profits to the owners of officially closed, but in fact working landfills. People own it seriously, apparently, since the governor's orders are not a decree for them.
According to the data we have, garbage continues to be delivered to the landfill to this day!
We ask you to pay the closest attention of officials at the local and regional levels to these facts.
The Livoberezhny polygon has been officially closed for as long as
almost four years, but local residents are convinced that garbage trucks continue to come here at night and in the morning to unload their unpleasant contents.
Here you can clearly see the fresh track from trucks.
It starts from the exit from the highway here to the landfill and
ends directly near the gate, which is on this moment closed.
Seeing the delegation of inspectors, the local security guard of the landfill was not happy to meet with journalists and denied the facts of garbage delivery.
It is not clear whether this landfill will be reclaimed. Local residents say that cars continue to arrive with garbage anyway.
The landfill administration denies these facts.
... And they were going to live in the local Kurshavel
When buying an apartment in an expensive new building in Khimki, directly opposite the Levoberezhny landfill, equity holders were sure that a wonderful view would open from the window.
Let's see what layers we live in: here, for example, is the view from the window.
When people bought an apartment, on the one hand there was a Moscow canal, and on the other hand they promised a ski resort.
It was in the ski resort that the local authorities were supposed to recultivate the Khimki landfill "Levoberezhnoy".
But something went wrong, and instead of Courchevel near Moscow from the windows
From their apartments, locals watch the rubbish heap grow.
On the same territory where the landfill stands, there is also a solid waste processing plant, and one would think that dozens of trucks carry waste there at night, if not for one nuance - local residents have seen many times how garbage is brought to the waste processing plant, but never saw anything taken away from there.
Every summer, the closed landfill, which was supposed to be covered with soil, regularly smokes, poisoning the air for tens of kilometers around.
Opening windows in the summer for people living here is an unaffordable luxury.
The landfill burns methane, which is released when the waste rots. Residents of neighboring houses often see smoke, which they periodically try to fill up, but during the summer season this happens as
at least a few times.
Produced so-called "primer" is not completely done.
Because of this, spontaneous fires occur in the landfill. Reclamation has not been carried out at the landfill either, therefore, instead of a ski resort, the Khimki administration offers local residents to coexist with a crematorium and a memorial complex, which, if the protests of the latter are not heard, will be built next to the landfill in the next few years.
Not enough solid waste landfill - let's add a crematorium!
An interesting survey was posted on the official website of the administration of the city district of Khimki. It's called - "Survey of citizens. Memorial complex"- whether it is necessary to install on
territory of the urban district of Khimki memorial
a complex on which the names of the missing Khimki residents, called to the front in the Khimki district, will be perpetuated by name.
There are classic answers "Yes" and "No", but something else is interesting here - in this survey there is not a word about what is in place memorial complex there will also be a crematorium.
Residents of course against such an initiative of the authorities. Such residents in all regions of the country are actively supported by environmental experts.
What to do with all these landfills?
In the near future, it is planned to create an interactive map of landfills, where anyone can declare an illegal landfill or a spontaneous garbage dump, after which the activists will
help in solving this problem.
In total, there are more than one and a half thousand polygons in the country,
and about 7,000 illegal dumps.
Recultivating them all is an incredible task, because in the case of official landfills there is someone to ask, but if we are talking about a spontaneous trash can, in the absence of a responsible person, it is often impossible even to start office work. Rosprirodnadzor is the supervisory authority in the field of solid domestic waste management, it is he who should record violations and regulate the activities of landfills. However, now the departments are limited in their capabilities.
Rosprirodnadzor can inspect organizations once every three years, and before the inspection, the body must notify the legal entity of the scheduled inspection.
During an unscheduled inspection, if, for example, an appeal is received from citizens or residents, Rosprirodnadzor must coordinate this inspection with the prosecution authorities of the subjects, notify the organization being inspected three days in advance. The effect of such a check is usually small.
In fact, the main problem is not how to control the landfills, but the fact that the very dumping of such amounts of waste in the soil entails an ecological disaster.
The process of decomposition of organic matter will take about a hundred years, while plastic will decay for at least half a millennium. Imagine: left on and a soda bottle will naturally decompose only in 2517.
Experts and the government see a way out of this difficult situation in new approaches to waste disposal, which are already actively used in Western countries.
Waste is a gold mine, it is a colossal resource base that can be used in a variety of ways.
But in order to get this resource, the waste must be sorted. Therefore, the first thing that should be done is to establish a waste sorting system.
The most widespread sorting system in the world is a separate collection.
Sorting at waste processing plants is also possible.
Of course, it will take more than a dozen years to build such a waste management system, but in order to bring this environmentally friendly future closer, throwing out a bucket of candy wrappers - do not be lazy to sort your household garbage.
On the site of the largest landfill closest to Moscow, a memorial park with a cemetery and military graves with a total cost of 5 billion rubles can be built. CJSC Industrial Company Eco, which is engaged in the reclamation of landfills, proposed to the government of the Moscow Region to erect a 70-meter memorial in the form of a truncated pyramid on the site of the garbage mountain of the Levoberezhny landfill, closed by the authorities in 2012. Now, next to a mountain of garbage in the north of the Moscow Ring Road, there is already a cemetery, and the new complex would look appropriate. According to the idea of the authors of the project (the editors have a presentation), a columbarium will also be built around the memorial for residents of nearby cities, that is, a cemetery intended for the burial of ashes after cremation, a chapel and, accordingly, several crematoria.
Mayan pyramid on rubbish foundation
The polygon body is unstable. The landfill is on fire, and the fires come to the surface; spreads due to the lack of a final overlap, a system for removing precipitation and collecting leachate. From 2008 to 2012, waste was placed in the body of the landfill in violation of all environmental norms and rules, says the presentation of the Eco company.
Now the landfill, which appeared on the site of the quarry in 1983, is officially closed; it occupies 37 hectares and is considered one of the largest in the region. The presentation of the Eco company says that more than 40 million tons of garbage have accumulated at the landfill. Despite a series of decisions by local authorities at various levels to close the landfill and fines, the management company continued to accept garbage, and this caused protests from local residents: they saw garbage trucks from the windows, and the scandal then reached the Ministry of Natural Resources. However, later bloggers reported that garbage continues to be taken to the landfill, only from the back.
At various times, they wanted to turn the landfill into a ski resort, a plant for processing accumulated waste, as well as an asphalt plant, the Eco presentation noted, but the projects constantly faced environmental problems, with too long payback (the payback period for a ski resort took 20 years, says a source in the government near Moscow) and the discontent of the citizens themselves.
Based on the sketches, the complex, similar to the Mayan pyramids, will be built in the form of a truncated pyramid with a height of a 25-storey building, which is about 70 m. The building will have several paved terraces (there are five of them in the image in the presentation, not counting the top platform), granite urns with the ashes of heroes brought “from other places” (reburial), a number of benches and lanterns can be installed on them around the perimeter. Stairs will lead to the top from several sides, expanding to the top, on which a tank, a stele and an Eternal Flame can be installed. On one of the slides of the presentation, "Eco" emphasizes the status of the memorial as "an important social facility and a zone of attraction for the patriotic education of young people", as a "world-class funeral facility."
Cemeteries are more profitable to build than resorts
The concept of the memorial park will include<...>a park area, a memorial complex, a chapel and a number of elements of a single ensemble of a park and memorial complex, the project of which will be developed as the second stage of reclamation<...>as its logical continuation, - writes the general director of CJSC Maxim Biryukov in a cover letter to the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Moscow Region Alexander Kogan.
First, you need to take the entire facility on a long-term lease from the municipality of the city of Khimki, the presentation says, then the company can reclaim the landfill, that is, rid it of rotten waste and chemicals, as well as set up a system for collecting toxic gases. In particular, it is proposed to develop a system of trenches for collecting leachate and gases, applying insulating materials and soil 10-11 m thick. After the completion of the reclamation, the company is ready to begin construction of the park itself.
In total, the project, according to the calculations of its initiator Eco, will need 5 billion rubles, of which about 1.5–2 billion rubles will be spent on reclamation (by the way, the cadastral value of the land under the landfill is 1.41 billion rubles). According to a source in the government of the Moscow region, the investor promised to find investments on his own and recoup them by selling places in the future cemetery, which will work as part of the memorial complex. The Austrian investor, Biryukov himself told Izvestia, but refused to disclose his name.
The memorial will occupy about 6 hectares, which is almost three times less than the territory currently occupied by the mountain (17 hectares) with a height of 87 meters, and many times less than the landfill (37 hectares). The remaining space (70, or 26 hectares) can be given over to a cemetery with a columbarium, several crematoria, as well as to the regional State Budgetary Institution "Ritual", which is proposed to be created "by analogy with the Moscow [similar] institution." According to Biryukov's calculations, about 200,000 places for columbar urns can be built here.
The choice to develop the landfill as a columbarium is explained by the company as "an acute shortage of land for burial throughout the Moscow region." According to Eco, “land for the burial of the inhabitants of Khimki is left for several months”, the need for only Khimki and neighboring Dolgoprudny in it is 78.63 hectares. Places in the cemetery can go to either Khimki with Dolgoprudny, or the entire region, on the slide about " additional benefits” of the project, the company writes about the columbarium as “a subject of bargaining with Moscow regarding the burial of its inhabitants.” In the last few years, as cemeteries began to be auctioned off, the average cost of a burial site in Moscow has reached 350,000 rubles, which often leads to outrage, Biryukov says.
In addition, the authorities will be able to significantly save on the burial of citizens - for the time of managing the cemetery and returning investments (the authorities are invited to conclude an investment contract or concession with the investor, Biryukov is in favor of an investment contract, the authorities, according to him, want to conclude a concession) the company is “ready to take over social burials and cremations carried out at public expense”, the return on investment is estimated at least 10 years.
This is, in fact, the first such project for the reclamation of this landfill, in which the authorities do not need to invest - all the money is provided by the investor. Previous projects were cut off largely due to lack of money in the budget. The investor is going to return the funds invested in the restructuring of the landfill by selling places in the columbarium; they say that the creation of a new cemetery on the site of the landfill "would relieve the problem of a shortage of places for burial," says a source close to ZAO Industrial Company Eco. - Now, on the territory of such memorial complexes, the cost of a place for a grave is from 1.5 million to 6 million rubles, for example, at the Troekurovsky cemetery [considered one of the prestigious cemeteries in Moscow, also adjacent to the Moscow Ring Road and has its own crematorium] it reaches 8 million rubles . The cost of a place for a grave is hundreds of times more expensive than the cost of a place for an urn. Burials here will be made in granite walls; there are no columbariums of this kind in Russia. If everything works out, I think the memorial project can be nominated for an architectural nomination.
According to the SPARK database, this company was registered in 2011 in the city of Vladimir by Alexander Valov and Sergey Gerasimov, there are no data on revenue and profit, and the authorized capital of Eco is only 10 thousand rubles, which has not changed since the company was registered. The only available accounting of Eco in Rosstat is for 2013, and, according to it, its assets amounted to only 65 thousand rubles. The company was created specifically for this project and did not conduct financial activities, says Biryukov.
As for the owners, Sergey Gerasimov, in addition to Eco, is the current general director of the Vladimir company Stroyservice, which was registered in January 2014. The company's revenue for 2014 amounted to 21.8 million rubles, and the declared net profit - 88 thousand rubles. Gerasimov also owns 91% of Impuls LLC, which was registered in February 2009 in Moscow, and is engaged in the crushed stone trade. The company's financial statements are available only for 2012, when the company received government orders for the supply of crushed stone to the City Road Control Center in the amount of 10.4 million rubles - this is the entire company's revenue for 2012, and the declared net profit is 25 thousand rubles. In May 2015, Gerasimov registered another company - Vladimir Construction Company LLC, where he owns 50%.
Alexander Valov, together with Eco, was the head of three more companies in the Vladimir region - Plasma LLC, Kontinent Company CJSC and Opolye LLP, the companies were liquidated at the end of 2010 or early 2011, all companies specialized in working with waste and metallurgical scrap. At the same time, in Moscow and the Moscow Region, several companies are also registered on Valov that deal with waste and scrap, all of them are operating - LLC Metalltransstroy, LLC STTK and CJSC Continent, Valov's share in them is 27, 19 and 16% respectively. All Moscow companies were registered more than 10 years ago, their authorized capital is 10 thousand rubles, but the financial statements of these companies are not disclosed.
"Eco" is engaged in the reclamation of landfills, Biryukov points out in a letter to Kogan. According to the public procurement website, Eco has no experience in building memorials or building cemeteries, but companies associated with it, in particular, according to Biryukov, Promalyans Group, participated as a subcontractor and contractor in the construction of two biogas mini-CHPs at Kuryanovsk water treatment plants (€23.8 million) and at the treatment plant in Lyubertsy (€65.7 million) - all for Mosvodokanal, as well as the sodium hypochloride plant of the Austrian EVN AG for €175 million. Last year, the plant after of the conflict between EVN and the Moscow mayor's office (/news/588665) went to the same Mosvodokanal for €250 million. Mosvodokanal was unable to comment promptly. Stefan Zach, spokesman for EVN AG, could neither confirm nor deny the participation of Eco-linked structures in the construction of the factories.
To approve a new project, the company needs a decision from the regional government. Eco is negotiating with the Khimki City Hall, as well as the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources (in terms of landfill reclamation) and the Ministry of Consumer Market and Services (on the project of a memorial and organization of a cemetery) of the region, says a source in the Moscow Region government. In general, the ministries considering the project have no complaints against it, the mayor’s office of Khimki agrees, and have already sent it for approval to the Ministry of Investment and Innovation of the Moscow Region, the source continues, in the first quarter of 2016, the project with the upcoming Biryukov business plan will be considered by the government itself at special "investment hour". It is not excluded that preferential landfill lease rates and reduced income tax can be applied as concessions.
The Ministry of Ecology and Investments of the Moscow Region, as well as the administration of Khimki, did not respond to requests. The press service of the overseeing cemetery of the Ministry of Consumer Market of the Moscow Region confirmed to Izvestia that a proposal for a memorial pyramid had been received, but indicated that they would leave the decision to the Ministry of Ecology.
So far, no one in the world has tried to replace landfills with columbariums with memorials - as a rule, after reclamation, parks are built on the site of the landfills, the presentation of the project indicates. There are also examples when garbage mountains were adapted for winter sports, says Alexander Tsygankov, an employee of the toxic department of Greenpeace Russia. According to the ecologist, the proximity of the Levoberezhny solid waste landfill to residential areas (about 500 m) is a manifestation of the garbage crisis in which Moscow finds itself: the metropolis, due to its rapid growth, rests on landfills left over from Soviet times. The problem of this landfill is very acute - gases are actively accumulating there, adds Tsygankov. Because of this, the landfill regularly ignites, the smoke from it spreads to the entire nearby microdistrict, the population is dissatisfied.
However, replacing the landfill with a cemetery may also raise objections among the population, in addition, the crematoria will be located in close proximity to residential areas. This "moral aspect of burials at the site of the former landfill" in "Eco" is understood "as an investment risk, which will be offset by significant investments in the formation of a positive image of the project," the presentation says. According to environmental standards, the installation of crematoria in such proximity to residential areas is allowed, the sanitary protection zone for them is from 500 to 1000 m, depending on the number of furnaces, in addition, the filtration system helps to minimize the negative impact, says one of the inspectors of Rosprirodnadzor, who wished to stay unnamed.
In addition to the garbage context, weak demand for columbaria may interfere
True, not everyone in the government of the Moscow Region is in favor of reburial of the remains of heroes and unknown soldiers at the dump site, as suggested by the Eco company. As for the department, which is headed by Sergei Shoigu (he worked as the governor of the Moscow region from May to November 2012), an anonymous interlocutor in the Ministry of Defense noted that the procedure for re-registration and reburial could take “more than one decade” and involves the installation of such a burial place on record with the Ministry of Defense. If there is no reburial and only a stele is installed, then only the Ministry of Culture should be notified.
The presentation did not come to the Ministry of Defense. Until the project is approved by the Government of the Moscow Region, it is pointless to assure the Ministry of Defense, - said a source in the ministry.
There are no architectural analogues of such a structure in Russia, he added. Elena Tsunaeva, executive secretary of the Search Movement of Russia, has not heard of such structures either. In her opinion, it is unethical to rebury the remains at the foot of the memorial - the religious feelings of citizens may be hurt, besides, there can always be relatives who disagree with cremation, she emphasizes.
It is not clear how the installation of the memorial itself is generally played up, because, as a rule, they are all thematic and somehow historically tied to the place of installation. The installation of a memorial at the site of the landfill is, in principle, very ambiguous, adds Tsunaeva.
Even if the authorities approve the project, it is unlikely that it will be able to pay off quickly - the crematoria built in Russia and Moscow are only 50% loaded, the crematorium at the Troekurovsky cemetery is idle, and there are no crematoria at all in the Moscow region, - says the vice-president of the Union of Funeral Organizations and crematoriums Alexey Suloev.
In Moscow, according to Suloev, there are about 6-10 crematoria, there are columbariums in cemeteries, but there are no individual columbariums. If the state is obliged to give out a place for a grave for free, then cremation is an exclusively paid procedure, he adds.
On the other hand, Suloev notes, the creation of a regional state unitary enterprise (according to the law, all cemeteries in the country must belong to municipalities, and be managed by state enterprises), proposed by the investor, may solve the problem of loading - people can be brought from nearby areas of the Moscow region and Moscow, moreover, free there are no cemeteries closer than 27 km to Moscow. Places in the columbarium may also be of interest to relatives of those beneficiaries who got a bad place for burial, says the executive director of the union, Elena Andreeva.
But due to the low cost of places for cremation [several tens of thousands of rubles], it is difficult to return the investment in 10 years. Perhaps the project is not initiated for the sake of building a memorial with a columbarium, - says Suloev.
It is possible that the investor simply needs to sell the land, for the export of which he was paid good money, says a source close to the company, or, for example, there may be scrap suitable for processing at the landfill. There is no useful waste in the landfill, and the company has no unnecessary land, Biryukov claims.
And this is not to mention the fact that private cemeteries in Russia are banned in principle, the new law legalizing private cemeteries and columbariums was never adopted [meaning the Federal Law "On Burial and Funeral Business", which was submitted for consideration in May State Duma (/news/584059)], he added.
If the project pays off, similar columbariums can be organized at other landfills closed by the authorities located 15-20 km from the Moscow Ring Road, such as the Salaryevo landfill, Biryukov believes.
The landfill in Khimki, which was closed five years ago, will be reclaimed. The investor promises to dismantle the landfill and create a memorial complex in its place, where the remains of the heroes will be reburied Patriotic War 1812
Photo: Danila Vasiliev / Photobank Lori
The administration of Khimki near Moscow and Industrial Company Eco JSC signed an agreement on the implementation of a large-scale investment project for the reclamation of the Levoberezhny solid waste landfill with the subsequent creation of a memorial complex. It will consist of a cemetery for 80,000 graves, a chapel with funeral halls, a park, and an Alley of Glory with an Eternal Flame.
The agreement (available to RBC) was signed following the results of an investment project competition, organized by the Ministry for Competition Policy of the Moscow Region. JSC "Industrial Company "Eco" (hereinafter "Eco") was the only participant in the competition.
According to SPARK, this company was registered in Vladimir in 2011 (the founders are Alexander Valov and Sergey Gerasimov), the authorized capital is 10 thousand rubles, there are no data on revenue and profit, it has a perpetual license from Rosprirodnadzor for the disposal and disposal of waste I — IV hazard classes. In 2016, the company was re-registered in Khimki specifically for this project, Eco director Maxim Biryukov told RBC.
Biryukov estimates the project implementation period at three to four years, and the amount of necessary investments at 5.5 billion rubles, including 2 billion for reclamation. PJSC KB Vostochny may become one of the investors, a letter of intent from the bank to take part in the implementation of the memorial complex project and arrange financing is attached to the package of documents submitted by Eco to the tender committee. The representative of KB Vostochny refused to answer questions from RBC about the expected volume of investments and the profitability of the project.
The executive director of the Union of Funeral Organizations and Crematoria (SPOK) Elena Andreeva considers it a delusion that the funeral business associated with the construction and operation of funeral facilities is very profitable.
Photo: JSC Industrial Company Eco
“At the first stage, an investor needs to invest a lot of money in infrastructure - paths, paths, landscaping. Then all this must be supported, that is, also bear the costs, ”Andreeva told RBC.
According to Biryukov, the territory under the cemetery will be transferred to municipal ownership - this is required by law, and Eco and the Khimki administration will create a management company to provide burial services. The investor also intends to make a profit from the sale of related goods and services, from the lease of real estate built on the territory of the memorial complex. In addition, the agreement signed by the parties allows the creation of a crematorium, on the income from the services of which Eco also counts.
“We want to make a landmark and status object, and the higher the status, the more expensive the services,” said the director of Eco to RBC.
As conceived by the authors of the project, all major regional events of a patriotic orientation will take place on the territory of the memorial complex. In addition, it is proposed to bury and rebury the remains of Soviet soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War, found by search teams.
The future object in Khimki, Biryukov believes, will be given a serious status by the burial of the remains of participants in the Patriotic War of 1812, which are now in the necropolis of the Donskoy Monastery. This issue is still under study, but the director of Eco has no doubts about its success.
“The cemetery is an object of cultural heritage and, according to the law, they have no right to transfer it,” a representative of the monastery, who asked for anonymity, told RBC. “Burial place, monuments remain immovable. In order to give status to the garbage dump, it is not necessary to destroy cultural monuments. We have signed a security obligation for the necropolis with the authorities for the protection of monuments, they did not contact us,” he said.
The administration of Khimki fears that the replacement of the landfill with a cemetery with a crematorium may cause objections among the population, since the territory is located in close proximity to residential buildings. Complaints from residents of Khimki have already been received by the All-Russian popular front, Anton Khlynov, an environmental expert of the ONF, told RBC. He sent a request to the Ministry of Ecology near Moscow, from where the answer came: “The participation of the relevant ministries in agreeing on the main terms of the investment agreement ensures that the documentation complies with the current legislation, including the moral and ethical requirements that must be taken into account when implementing the project.”
Andreeva from SPOK believes that from an environmental point of view, citizens have no reason to fear the construction of crematoria. “Modern cremators are environmentally friendly,” she says.
The Levoberezhny solid waste landfill with a total area of about 37 hectares is located in the city of Khimki, 750 m northeast of the Levoberezhny residential microdistrict. It was formed in the mid-1970s on the site of a former clay quarry near the village of Novo-Kireevo, and since July 2012, after numerous protests from local residents, it has been closed to receive waste.
As a representative of the Ministry of Ecology of the Moscow Region told RBC, 40 million tons of waste have accumulated at Levoberezhny. The landfill is not equipped with a system for collecting leachate and degassing, and there are numerous complaints from the population about the pungent odor.
The interlocutor noted that there are no funds in the budget of the Moscow Region for carrying out landfill reclamation work and the Ministry of Ecology supports the investment project, especially since it is the only one in the Moscow Region that involves the reclamation of solid waste landfills at the expense of the investor. In addition to reclamation, the purpose of the agreement is to address the acute shortage of burial sites in Khimki and the Moscow region.
The city administration did not respond to a request from RBC about how urgent the problem of lack of burial places is for Khimki. A representative of one of the Khimki ritual agencies confirmed to RBC that there was a problem. “In Khimki, all cemeteries are overcrowded and are actually closed for new burials, people are mostly buried in Lobnya,” the source said.
The landfill is planned to be dismantled, metal, rubber, polymers and other useful fractions to be processed at a waste processing plant, which is supposed to be installed nearby, Biryukov told RBC. According to him, such a reclamation project has not yet been implemented in the region. The head of Eco also believes that the company's revenue from the sale of recyclable materials could amount to several billion rubles.
At the same time, Viktor Trushin, the general director of the Spetsgeologiya company, which did the project for the reclamation of the Kuchino landfill, doubts that all waste can be recycled. “Many fractions have decomposed during this time, they will have to be exported somewhere, and there is now a shortage of polygon capacities in the region,” he told RBC.
