"Blue Crystal (Glass, Blue Tooth, Zenith)" on the South-West. Blue Tooth - Abandoned Business Center Zenith Crystal House on the Southwest

The Russian government will allocate 8.7 billion rubles for the completion of one of the most famous long-term construction projects in Moscow, the Zenit business and training center next to the RANEPA in the south-west of Moscow. The project is planned to be completed in 2021

Training and business center "Zenith" (Photo: Lori)

The Russian government has decided to complete the construction of the famous glass skyscraper near the Yugo-Zapadnaya metro station in Moscow. The building at 82 Vernadsky Ave., building 5 is proposed to be included in the Federal Targeted Investment Program for 2017 and the planned 2018 and 2019. Complete the reconstruction project worth 8.7 billion rubles. planned for 2021. Information about this is contained in the bill on the federal budget for these years.

The materials for the draft budget indicate that funding is allocated in accordance with the state program "Development of Education" for 2013-2020. Construction of a building “located on the same land plot with the main campus of the RANEPA (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. — RBC), will almost completely solve the problem of the lack of space at the academy in Moscow,” the explanation reads. In addition, the completion of the reconstruction will allow "to eliminate the damage caused to the architectural appearance of the city."

Academic long-term construction

The decision to build the Zenit business center was made back in 1989. The initial project assumed that there would be courses in international business for students of the Academy of National Economy (the name of the university before the reorganization). The project was initiated by the rector of the academy, Abel Aganbegyan, who agreed on the implementation of a large-scale project with the Italian company Valany International.

According to the development plan in a 20-storey multifunctional complex with an area of more than 100 thousand square meters. m, it was planned to place a five-star hotel with 300 rooms, retail space, a conference hall, a gym, a restaurant and underground parking for 400 cars. About 35 thousand square meters. m was planned to be allocated for offices, and 15 thousand square meters. m was to be occupied by the business school itself. The building, whose appearance was the responsibility of the famous Soviet architect Yakov Belopolsky (he also worked on the building of the Great Moscow Circus on Vernadsky Avenue and the monument to Yuri Gagarin on Leninsky Prospekt), was a giant crystal sheathed with reflective mirrors.

Valany International, which became the general contractor for the construction site, raised a $50 million loan guaranteed by the Soviet government. Construction began in 1992, after two and a half years it was planned to put the facility into operation. However, by the time the building was 80% ready, at the end of 1994, the anti-mafia operation "Clean Hands" took place in Italy. As a result, almost the entire leadership of Valany International was accused of complicity with the Sicilian mafia, the company's accounts were frozen, and at the same time, the construction of an educational complex in Russia was also suspended.

The debt for the unfinished Zenith and other Soviet obligations became part of negotiations between VEB and the Paris Club of creditors in 2001. A year later, in 2002, the Russian government handed over to VTB VEB's commercial business, which included the lending business of Zenith. In turn, the Ministry of Finance in 2004 included the demand for this loan in its claim against the Higher School of International Business OJSC, arresting the Zenith building, which was on the balance sheet of the Higher School of International Business. The latter received the object on the orders of Abel Aganbegyan.

After many years of arrest last year, the object was transferred to the RANEPA, which made it possible to unfreeze the construction site, Vedomosti wrote.

Educational only

Unlike the original project, the new one does not provide space for a business center, Vice-Rector of the RANEPA Igor Danilov told RBC. “Useful space will be divided approximately equally between the hotel and classrooms,” he said. “At the same time, the price includes both the entire decoration and modern equipment of the building, as well as the complete replacement of the building’s cladding.” The final distribution of space and the appearance of the building will be clear only after the design is completed, Danilov said. According to him, the study of the supporting structures of the building, carried out over the past year and a half, has proved that they are in excellent condition, and the skyscraper can be completed. “However, final conclusions will be made only after a detailed study,” he says.

At one time, the construction of this facility was one of the most advanced, but, unfortunately, it was never completed, complains Yuly Borisov, chief architect of the UNK Project bureau. “As a result, the city received one of the most famous long-term construction projects,” he says. “The fact that the project will still be completed will have a positive impact on the appearance of the city.” At the same time, the architecture of the complex looks modern and quite appropriate for this part of the city, the architect concluded.

The press service of the capital's Stroykompleks did not answer RBC's questions.

One of the most famous "unfinished" buildings in Moscow.

Why "famous"? First, because it is gigantic: 100,000 square meters. Secondly, because it is wildly expensive: 100 million dollars were invested in its construction. Thirdly, his story is scandalous and even detective (see below). And fourthly, the building is extraordinarily impressive: a futuristic composition of beveled volumes lined with mirror glass. No wonder he has established several nicknames: “blue crystal” or “blue tooth”.

For Moscow in the early 1990s, this was a real breakthrough. Here then there were neither buildings, completely mirrored, nor glass pieces of such radical forms. Although this trend has existed all over the world for a long time and managed to acquire a smack of commercial architecture. Academician Aganbegyan discovered the immediate source of inspiration in Italy, it was an office building built by Luciano Perini. The academician, who was then in great power, wanted to build something similar in Moscow for his Academy of National Economy.

Yakov Belopolsky, a classic of Soviet modernism, set to work, who (together with the young architect Nikolai Lyutomsky) fairly transformed the original idea, taking it away from the platitudes of Euromodernism to almost Suprematist forms. Of course, if you look at it, there is nothing supernatural in architecture here, the move is the same everywhere: different volumes are assembled, and then a certain segment is cut off at the top of each. However, the plots that arose - for example, the grotesque image of a pitched roof - were very funny and anticipated many attempts to modernize national forms (by Eric van Egerat in particular).

UPD: end of June 2012: ATTENTION to all beginners and seasoned, c. including those under 18! The object is fully guarded. This building belongs to the Academy of National Economy and State. service under the President of the Russian Federation. Penetrating into this object, you cross two territories at once! Sensors are installed inside the building, with the triggering of which video recording from the cameras begins. They are invisible, only if you look very carefully, you can see. The security there is made up of several people (more than 7 for sure), after they notice you, they take you to a separate office and hand over to the cops. Money and tearful prayers are not accepted. This guard appeared a month ago, before them, according to them, at least once a week, the corpses of people aged 11 and older were taken out of the building. These are not jokes or provocations, the author of this description had a conversation with the shift supervisor. He does not invent anything (a person is fully adequate and will not scare just like that). There were many cases when boys dragged girls and molested them under fear of the girl flying out of the window. Many suicides try to settle scores here. They hunt them day and night!
As for the unfinished building itself: it will be demolished soon. The demolition project is under development and will soon become a reality. Visiting this building has become life-threatening! The building skewed with a difference of one floor (!), This is visible only from one side, but the building "creeps" faster and faster. Please think and don't go here! Have pity on the guards and, first of all, your life! And their parents.

02/10/13 Penetration is free, through a hole in the fence. From the guards they saw two men of 40-50 years old passing along the first floor.

12/21/17 There are no chop booths, climbed through a hole in the fence. The climb is closed daily from 12 to 14, but it is easy to do it again. According to rumors, the booths will be returned at the beginning of 2018.

Many people want to go there, but we did!

The most famous "unfinished" Moscow.

Why "most"? First, because it is gigantic: 100,000 square meters. Secondly, because it is wildly expensive: 100 million dollars were invested in its construction. Thirdly, his story is scandalous and even detective. And fourthly, the building is extraordinarily impressive: a futuristic composition of beveled volumes lined with mirror glass. No wonder he has established several nicknames: “blue crystal” or “blue tooth”.

The building, located next to the Yugo-Zapadnaya metro station, perfectly fit into the modernist landscape of the 60s-70s and became - thanks to the novelty of its forms and cladding - a noticeable landmark. Alas, its further fate was tragic, it stands virtually without a roof, rots - and it is not even an hour, it will disappear from the face of Moscow.

The guard escorted us to the stairs, along which we immediately climbed to the 5th floor, we had not taken pictures before.
At the top left you can see a red window, next to which there is an exit to one of the roofs.

Look down.

In some places, the curb is knee-deep, not very pleasant sensations. The guard also warned that you could fall into the elevator shaft... :)

Everywhere there is a lot of garbage, the building has been abandoned for 15 years.

Everyone decided to go to the roof.

At first they went to the wrong floor, found such a window. As a whole, there is nothing to photograph inside, it is the same on all floors.

Found a way out to the roof, he was on the 8th floor. Looking back.

Almost a continuation of the previous photo on the right side.

And also, since our people go out through the glass, before going to the roof and after, heaps of broken glass.

On the left below you can see heaps of glass and our "entrance".

Everything on the roof was overgrown, from moss and grass to small bushes and trees.

There are even mushrooms! And also there is the presence of civilization, and quite recent.

Glass, which is in the first photo. Previously, apparently, they climbed through it until they cut through another entrance :)

And that's it. Pretty, right?)

Houses on Lobachevsky Street, as well as the 31st city hospital.

On the left in the photo is a small superstructure, there are several of them, we climbed into one of them.

Nothing interesting, on the second floor there are cabinets for equipment and a bunch of scattered wires.

And this is the landscape behind the legs. Entrance to the Academy of National Economy and MIREA.

We begin to move back to the hole in the window to climb higher.

We go inside. We are looking for stairs and go up the floor, in search of something interesting.

We walked through the floors, somewhere up to 9, did not find anything interesting. We began to climb further, and on the stairs between 9 and 10 (I can be a little mistaken with the numbers), there was a barricade of ventilation pipes, about 2 meters high. It's good that there was a small reinforcing ladder. At first, it was scary to climb over, because it was completely dark and it was not clear why this barricade was there and what was under it, but then they nevertheless decided. By the way, in front of the barricade, on the wall of the stairs was written in chalk "COME BACK!" :)

On many floors, the picture is something like this.

Who, how and why does it - is unknown. Apparently people have nowhere to put their energy. If only they would guide her in a peaceful direction ... Everyone would live well in Russia)

From the windows in the main this view ...

We walked along this floor to the other side of the building. Almost nothing has changed.

MIREA in the rays of the sun.

We decided not to walk on the floors anymore, because everywhere is the same. The layout is the same, the garbage is the same. In general, we wanted to climb to the roof. This was no longer a problem. The only thing is the 22nd floor stairs in the dark.

There is a huge winch on the roof, under which there is a hole with garbage - one beer bottles and cocktail cans. At first we took pictures carefully, then we climbed onto the winch.

The winch itself.

A piece of the roof at the bottom right and a view of the Yugo-Zapadnaya metro station. The big white house on the left is the new building "Elena".

Several photos from another camera, therefore, differ in both quality and resolution.

Bus depot, behind it the market. On the right is also a new building, which, in my opinion, does not fit anywhere at all.

Construction at MIREA, the building of Gazprom. View of Vernadsky Avenue towards Lobachevsky.

Closer.

"Crosses" on Koshtoyants Street, Moscow State University and other famous skyscraper buildings in the background.

Well that's all, thanks for your time! :)

This building of a memorable shape and color (both are aptly reflected in its "folk" name) is familiar to every inhabitant of the South-West. But I think only the attentive and curious will guess that this is an unfinished, in fact, beautiful and very expensive ruins. In any case, I did not guess until I was named this place among the "stalker" objects of Moscow.
This grandiose unfinished building has the official name of the Business Center "Zenith", a height of 22 floors and an area of 100,000 square meters. It has not only a remarkable appearance (very innovative for the city, especially considering that it appeared long before CITY and other extravagant Moscow remakes), but also an intricate story, which I will try to briefly outline.
The idea of construction arose in the late Soviet years from the then rector of the Academy of National Economy (who owned the territory in the South-West) A. Aganbegyan. The construction was financed mainly by the Italians, and they also made the metal frame of the building (which was then assembled in Moscow) and many other materials. Construction began in 1991 and by 1995 it was completed by at least 80%: according to Wikipedia, a 10-story atrium with panoramic elevators and escalators, a swimming pool, a concert hall, and even bathtubs were delivered to the apartments.
And then, as a result of anti-corruption investigations in Italy, the company that carried out the construction ceased to exist, a leapfrog began with forms of ownership, privatization and owners of the building in Russia; as a result, construction was stopped at the last stage. Since then, everything has only been falling apart: (and it is unlikely that it can be restored now.
From the inside there (judging by the photographs and reports) there are real stalker wilds, amateurs regularly make their way there, despite a blank fence and security (it seems to be possible to negotiate with her), an external examination was enough for me to satisfy my curiosity.

A small boulevard leads from the metro to the Blue Tooth

From a close distance, the crumbling state of the building, alas, is obvious

"Blue tooth" is remarkable in that it has a completely different appearance from different sides.

Although this part of the unfinished building is not fenced off by a deaf green fence and looks quite decent from the outside, it, alas, is also uninhabited.

In the neighborhood - a giant territory, the owner of which is named on the plate (one of the successors of the Academy of National Economy, which once started construction)

From the "rear" some other construction is underway

This is such a strange story. Truly, Moscow is a city of wonders...
update. I add new information from the link in the comments

In 2012, the building was transferred to the balance of the Academy (RANEPA, the successor to the Academy of National Economy)... First of all, there was an acute issue of conducting a comprehensive assessment and examination of what had survived over two decades... In addition to the technical and economic component and a large number of conservation criteria , it was also necessary to analyze the aspect of compliance with the various norms that are in force today. (For example, now there are completely different fire safety standards, and not those that were at the time construction began in the 90s, etc.). Since almost all construction documentation was lost, it became clear that everything would have to be restored step by step. In April 2012, the Academy announced an open competition for the performance of works on the technical survey of the Zenith Center.

The findings of the audit disproved the worst fears: the building structure is in an acceptable condition for further operation. At the same time, according to preliminary calculations, it turned out that the cost of completing the construction of the administrative and educational building could be about 6 billion rubles, and the new administrative and educational building (with the dismantling of the existing one) would cost less - about 5.4 billion rubles. The Academy turned to the Government of the Russian Federation with a request to resolve the issue of the fate of Zenit and consider the possibility of financing the decision. To date, we have carried out all possible actions on this object and are waiting for the decision of the Government. In any case, it is too early to put an end to this story.

In general, demolition cannot be completed ...