Yuri Luzhkov - The Moscow Mayor

Yuri Luzhkov – Moscow's legendary mayor. He's been ruling our city for ages – namely, since 1992, and has become a symbol of Moscow since then. In fact, Luzhkov was around for so long that we even have a joke that goes "if you're so smart then tell me – who was Moscow's mayor before Luzhkov?" Guess what - nearly nobody's able to answer!

By the way, if anyone asks, the answer is "Gavriil Popov". He was the first Moscow mayor from 1991 to middle of 1992. The reason for his quick resignation was simple – he was too inexperienced to deal with city's problems. No wonder, since not many knew how to handle the communist legacy, and frankly – Moscow was a one big bunch of problems back then!

So, right after Popov resigned, Yuri Luzhkov was elected as the city mayor. I think people would be surprised to know that Luzhkov will be around for that long, especially considering the problems he would have to face!

As I said, Moscow was very, very problematic. The Communism was over, but the mere change of economic system didn't solve the old problems. Plus, Moscow was caught completely off-guard by the new times, as its infrastructure was not built for the upcoming overload.

Think for yourself – during USSR times, Moscow was sort of a "restricted area". It meant that you couldn't just move in and settle – you either had to be invited by the government or marry a Muscovite. Then, and only then you would get your "propiska" (registration), and become one of the "elite".

All of that means that Moscow was designed and built to sustain a certain amount of population – about 6 million people at most, plus the Soviet architects planned nothing more than a small, gradual population increase over years. Needless to say, they couldn't even dream about the population boom that happened after the fall of the commies!

Right after the regime fell, hundreds of thousands of people decided to move to Moscow. First of all, because living there was a dream of every Soviet citizen. However, dreams were not the only reason, because life in Moscow provided lots of significant advantages.

Since Moscow has always been a center of everything, Muscovites enjoyed better education, better healthcare, better career opportunities – and even better food, as our capital's shops were always full of things that people from Russian province couldn't even dream about!

The communist regime would solve the problem by imposing restrictions on its citizens, but when Luzhkov rose to power he obviously couldn't do that anymore. Therefore, Moscow mayor had to deal with thousands of new Moscow residents using the infrastructure that was simply not built to handle the load!

Not only that, but Moscow didn't really have backup resources, like territories, electricity and water supply. The Soviet government was so sure of itself it didn't even want to bother with contingency plans. Therefore, Moscow was alway to remain a city with artificially limited amount of population and according infrastructure. Well, times have changed nevertheless, and people who wrote those plans are history now...

In addition to all being said, Moscow was pretty much neglected. Yes yes, despite all the super-centralization the city was not at its best shape when Perestroika came. After all, USSR was suffering from tremendous lack of funds during its latest years, and Moscow was not an exception.

For example, even during the best Soviet times, Moscow ring-road (MKAD) was called "the road of death". Why? Because it was poorly lighted, not properly marked and was too narrow at some points. Needless to say, the amount of accidents was huge even when there weren't that many cars around. However, when Moscow's population grew – MKAD became a living hell...

In addition to road network problems, Moscow metro was not developed enough to take on all the new passengers. However, if the roads can be expanded relatively quickly, adding new lines and stations to Moscow subway is extremely expensive even with modern technologies. However, something had to be done immediately because the metro was facing a full-scale collapse.

Roads were deteriorating, buildings required immediate attention - and don't forget that Moscow is probably the most technologically complex city in the entire Russia, which means there are countless more things the mayor has to worry about.

As you see, Yuri Luzhkov inherited Moscow when it was not at its best shape. People were arriving while city's ability to host them was constantly deteriorating, and there was not nearly enough money to fix all those issues. Plus, Muscovites were quite tired with all the rough times, so they demanded immediate solutions. Well, one thing for sure – Yuri Luzhkov was the man for the job!

When I'm looking at today's Moscow, it's hard for me to believe it's actually the same city that's shown in the old Soviet movies. Now by "old" I don't means 1930's, but movies that were shot at seventies and eighties, pretty recent when you're talking about city's history.

Back in those times, Moscow was big, but that's about it. Not much to look at, to be honest, except for Kremlin and the Red Square. In fact, the city was quite dull, with grayish buildings, roads full of Soviet cars – and a couple of shops here and there that were supposed to serve as Western supermarkets but failed miserably.

However, today's Moscow is a true, Western-like megalopolis, with loads of shopping malls, casinos, office buildings and banks. All of that was achieved during the rule of mayor Yuri Luzhkov. How? The answer is simple – he just did that.

Luzhkov was the one who brought to Moscow all the things people are so used to in the West. Heck, even a shopping mall was very new to us just a decade ago! However, in addition to malls, Luzhkov built casinos, made order in the city's food markets – in short, he gave Moscow a far more civilized looks.

In addition to that, Moscow mayor has also begun extensive road works – he finally fixed MKAD, and added another Moscow ring road called "the Third Ring". Right now, the construction of the Fourth Ring is underway, but it's unclear when it's going to be finished.

Needless to say, all these improvements helped Moscow regain its status as one of the world's capitals, and make sure Muscovites won't have to blush each time their foreign friends come to visit.

Yes, Moscow has changed – thanks to mayor Luzhkov... But – if you think I'm a strong proponent of him – think again, because there are just as many things about him that I don't like.

Luzhkov has unofficial nickname "starik Baturin" ("Old man Baturin"). He earned it because of his wife, Yelena Baturina, who is currently one of Russia's biggest building tycoons. Guess what – most of her projects are located in Moscow, where she always gets the biggest slice of the pie. Hmm, I wonder...

In fact, Yuri Luzhkov's name has been around nearly all biggest corruption scandals in Moscow. Do you remember I spoke about the Fourth Ring Road? Well, guess what – one kilometer of that road costs about the same as one kilometer of The Large Hadron Collider that's located probably a mile beneath the Swiss mountains! Can you imagine that?

We basically suffer huge traffic jams because of the terrible corruption of Moscow authorities. First of all, it takes a lot of time and money to build all those fancy ring roads, and second – they don't really solve anything.

Instead of adding more and more of in-city traffic interchanges, it would be much more efficient to fine-tune the existing road network. However, in that case the corrupt officials will not be able to earn anything, because such fine-tuning is long, tedious and doesn't require huge budgets.

So, it is much better to just add another ring road and a couple of huge traffic junctions that make the situation even worse, and hope for the best. Well, this approach just doesn't work - just like in many other cases.

Luzhkov is also known for his infamous sayings, like when he called the gay pride parade "satanic". I can't say I'm a strong supporter of gay parades, but I think that our mayor really hurts Moscow's reputation with all these phrases, so he'd better watch his language.

But, as another joke goes - "how do you say "Moscow" in English? -Luzhkov-city". I guess for the time being, Moscow is all about Luzhkov, and Luzhkov is all about Moscow, and this isn't going to change in the near future...


As you see, Yuri Luzhkov is an extremely controversial person. He's done a lot for Moscow, but he's also got too much "stains" on the reputation. I would say that right now these stains outweigh his good deeds. What does it mean?

...you do the math! ;)




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