The chief architect of Moscow, Alexander Kuzmin, has submitted a letter of resignation. According to the press service of the mayor and the government of Moscow, Kuzmin made the decision to leave the post himself.
The resignation letter from the post of head of the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Construction was approved and it is expected that Alexander Kuzmin will resign immediately after returning from the planned vacation, which will last from July 16 to August 14, 2012.
Rumors that Kuzmin will leave the post of chief architect of the Russian capital have been around for a long time. After Sergei Sobyanin was elected mayor of Moscow, experts and the media more than once predicted Kuzmin's resignation. It was also said that his place could be taken by the former chairman of the board of the Avtodor company and the current deputy of Alexander Kuzmin - Sergei Kostin. Such predictions, first of all, were connected with the fact that the head of the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Construction is the last high-ranking official from the team of the former mayor of the capital, Yury Luzhkov.
As head of the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Architecture, Alexander Kuzmin worked for 16 years, starting in 1996. Prior to that, Kuzmin worked for 5 years in the same department, but as a deputy head.
Over the years of work in the Moscow Committee of Architecture, Kuzmin had a tremendous influence on the formation of the architectural image of the Russian capital. His decisions were repeatedly criticized by the public and became the subject of heated debate. Thus, the approach to building the city was often disapproved of due to the excessive density of the location of objects and a large number of retail and office buildings in the very center of Moscow, which caused endless traffic jams. Alexander Kuzmin also took part in the creation of the General Plan for the Development of Moscow until 2025, which has also been criticized more than once.
Kuzmin himself does not hide that there were mistakes in his work and during the construction of the capital. Among such unfortunate decisions, he refers to the transformation of Arbat Square, the British Embassy and the Central Bank building on Pyatnitskaya Street.
