“Currently, the state registration of the right of permanent (unlimited) use of FKU KP-8 for one piece of land and the right of operational management for 24 real estate objects located on it has been terminated,” the regional department of the Federal Penitentiary. Service of Russia reported.
The “Crosses” buildings housed 999 cells, mostly single cells. Since the end of the 1960s, “Cruces” became a preventive detention center, where up to 12 thousand people were kept, with an estimated number of 2 thousand convicts. To solve the problem, in 2007 the construction of “New Crossings” began in Kolpino.
Since then, there has been a discussion about how to use the territory of the old “Crosses”. It was proposed to adapt the buildings for a hotel or an entertainment center, but the complex on Arsenalnaya Embankment is an architectural monument of federal importance, it cannot be reconstructed.
In the near future, “DOM.RF” will put “Cruces” up for auction. At the same time, the winner must “provide the territory with new functions sought and return to urban life.”
And the inhabitants of Petersburg are worried. Last year, the head of DOM.RF, Vitaly Mutko, visited Kresty, but he did not make any statement at the time. Cultural figures from St. Petersburg sent him a letter with a proposal to turn SIZO No. 1 into a museum. But it is not expedient to completely museumize a densely built-up area with a total area of 4 hectares, Mikhail Milchik, a member of the Scientific and Methodological Council for Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, believes: “The most valuable, important monument , must be preserved, the rest must be used”.
“Crosses” were opened in St. Petersburg in 1892 and until recently were one of the most famous penal institutions in Russia.
