14 DAY TRIAL // The Moscow Planetarium was first opened in 1929 and has represented for many years a landmark for star gazers in the Soviet Union. In 1994, it was closed for repairs and 14 years later the Planetarium is still waiting to be re-open. However, last Wednesday, something extremely interesting happened. According to Igor Mikitasov, director of the Moscow Planetarium, twenty men came and beat up an employ, then claimed they were the new bosses of the Planetarium.
Considering that the institution is build on an extremely pricey patch of real estate, the story related by the staff of the Planetarium suddenly starts to come into focus. "It's shameful. It's no good when 14 years all of Moscow and society suffer because of some diagreement among businessmen," says Anatoly Cherepashchuk, director at Shternberg Astronomy Institute at Moscow State University. The Planetarium was scheduled for expansion and modernization and was supposed to re-open by 2004, when it celebrated its 75th anniversary.
As it has missed its first completion deadline, the re-opening was again rescheduled for 2006, but the re-opening was once again delayed. No one wondered why this happened, however now questions are starting to arise, such as will the Planetarium ever re-open again and if yes, when?
Why the delay?
The problem is that Mikitasov's company which is a minority shareholder in the Planetarium and funded part of the reconstruction, owns part of the land on which the institution is built, and is located in one of the costliest neighborhoods of Moscow. According to Moscow officials, the Mikitasov company is the sole to blame for the delay in the reconstruction of the Planetarium. Not only that, but it seems that the company is also in debt to the institution with several tens of millions of dollars.
Mikitasov, on the other hand, says that the city is to blame for the delay and that he and his family was threatened. This is why they were forced to move to another country. Additionally, Mikitasov claims that the city tried to bankrupt his company, by inflating the debt to the Planetarium to over 72 million US dollars.
According to chief engineer Alexander Zaborsky, on Wednesday he went to work and saw three SUVs parked right in the parking lot outside the institution. He reveals that one of the men inside the vehicles said that he is the new director of the Planetarium. Several minutes later, 20 men entered the institution, forced the security guard to give them the keys and came in to beat up Zborsky.
Mikitasov says that the intention of the authorities is to close the Planetarium and use the land on which it is built to create a mall of high-priced housing. A 1,500-square-foot apartment in the near vicinity of the institution is believed to worth as much as 4.2 million dollars.
Although the city officials refused to talk to the press during Friday, Moscow Property Department deputy director, Igor Ignatov says that the city will now have to find another company to be in charge of the administration of the Planetarium.