Rostov300

On March 5 2020, the Rostov 300 project, the new expert site of the urban community of Rostov-on-Don, was opened at the Don State Public Library. The reason for its creation was the need to develop a new concept for the territorial development of the largest city in the south of Russia, which will celebrate its 300th anniversary in 2049.
The goal of the project is to create a vision for the future for the current and next generation of residents of Rostov-on-Don. Based on the results of the first stage of the project (March – June 2020), a collection of proposals for the development of the city will be developed, which will contain specific ideas, articles, graphic materials, the principles of Rostov 300 and ways to implement the plan. A collection of proposals will be submitted for consideration by the city administration for inclusion in the city development program.
The curators of the Rostov 300 project were cultural expert Alexandra Chernova, head of the arts department of the Children’s State Children’s Art School, member of the Eurasian Art Union and urbanist Mikhail Veklenko, head of the ANO Factory of the City. The first discussion on the topic “Heritage and History” was attended by the chairman of the Rostov regional branch of the Union of Architects of Russia Sergey Alekseev, the head of the Rostov regional branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture Alexander Kozhin, coordinator of the MyFasad public association Gennady Krolman, coordinator of the movement Tom Sawyer Fest ”in Rostov-on-Don Varvara Kudlaenko, associate professor of the Department of Architecture of DSTU Mikhail Sarkisyants, architect and artist Alexander Stadnik. In the future, the curators intend to attract foreign partners to the project in order to actively use international experience in urban development.
The theme of Rostov’s architectural and urban heritage, in the opinion of the participants in the discussion, comes down first of all to resolve the issue of which historical buildings and building elements need to be preserved and which can be rebuilt and reconstructed. Unlike many large cities of Russia, Rostov has a large volume of preserved historical buildings, although it is inferior in this respect to St. Petersburg, Moscow or Samara. At the same time, the city has historical areas outside the center and in some places preserved a historical environment.
However, over two decades of aggressive high-rise construction, the quality of this environment has deteriorated significantly. The active demolition of pre-revolutionary buildings, the appearance of wasteland, the consequences of major repairs carried out without taking into account the recommendations of the expert community, as well as the construction of new buildings in violation of the historical environment – all this leads to its gradual destruction. While maintaining these trends, Rostov can come up to its 300th anniversary with a minimal share of historical heritage, which can still be a unique competitive advantage of the city for the development of tourism and a significant value for its residents.
The historical heritage of Rostov also includes images of historical memory that can be reproduced in an urban environment using modern technology. One of them – the Trinity fortress with which the city began – can become a symbolic framework of the historical center. At the same time, the question of how significant for the commercial and cosmopolitan Rostov-on-Don is the legacy of the Cossacks is controversial. However, this page of history organically takes its due place within the framework of the agglomeration of Bolshoi Rostov, the borders of which include Starocherkasskaya and Novocherkassk.
“For Rostov-on-Don, as well as for every city in Russia and the world, it is important to realize their place and potential competitive advantages in order to take their place in the world thirty years later,” commented Mikhail Veklenko on the results of the first discussion. – Today in Rostov, as in many cities of Russia, there is no full understanding of the future development of the territory. But as citizens, we are fully responsible for our home – for our city. The development of a large city requires an understanding of the territory from a variety of points of view. Discussion of the development of modern Rostov is the way to understanding how we want to see ourselves on the anniversary, when the city will be 300 years from the day it was founded. We are sure that experts and ordinary citizens can and should formulate this in texts and illustrations, find answers for themselves, have time to work through them and implement them for the 300th anniversary of the city, setting an example to other cities in Russia. The main question at this stage of work on the project is what challenges does the city now face? ”