It seems that St. You have the last article to watch St. Petersburg for free. More precisely, without additional fees: Governor Beglov signed a decree on the resort fee for tourists. From April 1, a traveler will be charged 100 rubles for a day spent on our rivers and canals.
For Russia, the initiative is not new: tourists in the Kuban are already paying the resort fee “on the water” and for some reason in the Altai sanatorium Belokurikha. This collection is also found abroad. For example, I remember very well that in Jurmala there is not only a resort fee – there is an entrance fee. All exits from the highway to the city have parking meters where they collect money. I don’t remember the exact amount, it looked like four euros in 2019. Only for the right to enter the city. The more times you leave and go in, the more you pay. Free mode is provided for local numbers. For Latvia subscription. It is officially stated that the money was spent on ordering and decorating the city. And indeed we saw flower pots along the roads there.
Petersburg also has flower pots. They hang even on the Moscow highway. In Zelenogorsk, a seaside suburb, everything is in bloom. And they put them in the state kosht.
Or rather, especially for me, because although I live in the country, St. I pay taxes in St. Petersburg. Flowers are taken from them and planted on the roadside. It looks good.
On the other hand, St. There is so much need in St. Petersburg that pots and flower beds along the highway are not the first thing taxes will be spent on.
The city appears to be in good shape, but the general long-term feeling from it is that it has not improved in any way. How many problems with a subway. Facades are being restored, terraces appear next to the cafe, the bus fleet is updated from time to time, new tram trains, new subway trains. But everything appears in doses, as if from a beaker. They have recently started to provide uninterrupted internet in the subway, apparently now available in all branches but gradually implemented.
There is no global breakthrough as in Moscow, and there is no tangible development in the city. And even the World Cup, except that at that time several streets were paved on a new street and long-term subway stations were opened, St. It did not have a special effect on St. Petersburg. They should have opened years ago.
Since then, there are no new stations open to the World Cup, occasionally being repaired: flooding, then the coating falls off, then the exits are closed. Directly carry the number of misfortunes.
What about the new stations? The Mariinsky Theater has already adapted to work on the eternal construction site: the Teatralnaya metro station has been digging for 10 years. Probably only our grandchildren will see the Mining Institute station. This is often an issue with the subway: In 2012 St.
Ground transportation isn’t much better. A big breakthrough: in many directions, minibuses were replaced by buses of the PAZ type. And that’s the last few years. What does not play a general role: vans are chasing, you can not sit in them with a stroller.
And so in everything, in all the little things. Infrastructure has not been developed extensively. There is no new metro in the city, but they will build another highway to Moscow faster than Sapsan, but Sapsan tickets are not always sold out, as they are expensive. Beautiful houses are being demolished under the highway at the Farforovsky outpost, but they can’t seem to put things right in the giant vegetable warehouse nearby.
There is a problem with home repairs: Many have been ravaged in the second decade, as the city also embarked on a renovation program, but practically nothing is demolished or built, as a result, a group of neighborhoods froze in the second decade: neither here nor there. We have such a block: nine-story buildings have been repaired, but the Khrushchevs are standing crying, they are not demolished, repairs are not made, since 2011 everyone has been waiting for demolition. “Renovation started” means spitting on it in every sense.
But these are suburbs. And our metro station on Prospekt Slava does not seem to interest tourists: at least fill it up. It is unclear how much joy he opened to us for the World Cup in general.
Ok then. And the center? After all, St. Even the center of St. Petersburg is not only dilapidated, but lagged far behind Moscow. Moscow calmed down a bit for two or three years, its brilliance faded and it turned into a normal European city, the pretentiousness of the major repairs and landscaping frenzy of the early years is gone.
But even now, when the tiles in Moscow are worn, on the way back from the capital to St. Petersburg, there is a complete feeling that the development of our city has come to a standstill.
And about five years ago, when Moscow was rapidly renovating, there was an overall deplorable feeling: St. You get off the train in St. Petersburg and want to cry. Whether it’s out of jealousy, resentment, or everything at once. I was at Novokuznetskaya station in Moscow several times in 10 years when I went to the Tretyakov Gallery. And each time I noticed something new: either the fiber market was removed and benches were installed, then the benches were replaced, then the tiles were moved, then beautiful counters were made with coffee, then the counters were knocked down and the toilet opened. . Perpetual life, when I came to the Tretyakov Gallery, I never found the space next to the subway in its former form.
In the case of visiting the Hermitage, there has been only one change in 12 years: in 2011, a long-term construction was opened – Admiralteyskaya metro station. Of the changes – the arrest of the property of the then head of the metro and the detection of theft by the Accounting Chamber in the amount of 6 billion rubles. We look at what happened in Moscow: the cost of 1 km of shallow roads with a full-fledged station costs the treasury 4.5 billion rubles. Underground at normal depth – another 2 billion. In fact, the only interesting thing we have is that another station may have been wasted during the construction of the Admiralteyskaya station. The toilet made from an old bus near the Hermitage was dragged from place to place.
Nevsky is updated only by changing the institutions on the first floors. The sidewalks were widened for the city’s 300th anniversary, so nothing has been radically improved or changed in 20 years…
Maybe this hundred rubles will help? Too many tourists now, nowhere to go, even the churches in the city center are full of visitors than ever before. When I walked along the Nevsky on the eve of City Day, there was even a crowd of tourists at the German Peterkirche and the Goethe monument. Unprecedented ripple. If you receive 100 rubles a day from each of them, and then direct the money to the development of the city, then I agree. Especially if they are controlled by the federal government.
True, it will be difficult to charge a fee, because many hotels in the tourist city illegally exist in the form of communal apartments converted into hostels and guesthouses, they often do not even ask for a passport, as it is forbidden. place hostels in the housing stock. It is unclear how the money will be withdrawn. Maybe they will immediately start shooting from armor collectors?
Well, they’ll find a way. I will only be for Let them tear up the tourists, since without this money in the city there is not enough for anything.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.