Inside the gash that was once a swimming pool and may one day be a cathedral, 500 workers are going about their business, oblivious to scandal or criticism.


Some of them had read about Mayor Yury Luzhkov's surprise ouster of Igor Pokrovsky, project manager for the reconstruction of the pre-revolutionary Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Pokrovsky was stripped of his duties last Saturday because "he worked badly," in the words of mayoral spokesman Konstantin Cherkassky.


The esteemed Moscow architect represents one of the first casualties in a grandiose project whose estimated cost is $300 million -- a sum many say the city does not have.


City Hall and the Orthodox Patriarchate are at loggerheads over blueprints for the cathedral. The original church was torn down by Stalin in the 1930s, and the site was later turned into a swimming pool.


Workers recently drilled straight into a secret tunnel 30 meters below ground level, which builders suspect led to a Stalin-era bunker, Pokrovsky said in an interview Wednesday.


And as planners prepare for the ritual laying of foundations on Jan. 7, Muscovites' main question about the cathedral is whether it should be built at all.


On ground level, none of these debates makes much impact. "Whether this church gets built on time, or not on time, or not at all, makes absolutely no difference to me," said one worker, as he clambered into a crane outside the site's fence.


Luzhkov decided to replace him, Pokrovsky said, after the architect's workshop mistakenly submitted a sheaf of blueprints last week that conformed not with the mayor's specifications, but with the Patriarchate's.


The Patriarch is lobbying for a church school, a synod building and a winter garden, as well as underground parking for 300 cars. To cut costs, Luzhkov hopes to limit the project to the cathedral and a 600-car parking lot, Pokrovsky said.


Irate when he saw the large-scale plans, Luzhkov stripped Pokrovsky of his position through decree.


"It's the same old story. This happens all the time," said Pokrovsky. "Someone put the wrong plan on the mayor's table, and he thought the workshop was badly organized, and Pokrovsky was out."


Pokrovsky, whose past projects have included the Kremlin Palace of Congresses and buildings on Novy Arbat, said he will continue working on the project in a non-supervisory capacity. The Moscow Committee for Construction and Urban Planning will begin work to appoint a new project manager, Cherkassky said.


As word of Pokrovsky's ouster trickled through to the ground crew, workers stressed that the project's main obstacles were financial, not structural. Inside the site, one laborer said chronic equipment shortages had delayed structural work that "should have been finished a long time ago."


Some spoke out in defense of Pokrovsky and said Luzhkov's move would further delay the cathedral's construction.


"They won't find anyone else as good," said Arkady Mitralanov, a loader who recently signed on with the cathedral project. "This happens all the time with Luzhkov. He was way too hasty."