BBC: “Russian tower plans cause alarm”
Unesco has warned the building of the skyscraper, which would tower over the city’s Neva river and surrounding low-level buildings, could mean St Petersburg is added to the agency’s list of endangered world heritage sites.
“We’re hoping the (federal) decision to build it won’t be taken,” said Grigory Ordzhonikidze, the secretary-general of Unesco’s Russian commission.
It may be a while elephant, but it’s pretty clear that threatening to add St Petersburg “the agency’s list of endangered world heritage sites” will not, in the Russian climate, help with any plans for saving the beauty of old St Petersburg. This is certainly not a matter for the UN. (That said, it’s almost certainly going to be a temple to the new Russian state socialism, as it will house Gazprom.)