City Center: Wealthy Retreat or Smog Zone?

As smoggy Moscow, one of world's most industrialized capitals, sheds its communist-era image as the "city-museum" and the "city-resort" and abandons itself to rising pollution, more and more native Muscovites with prestigious apartments in the center are choosing to hand over their keys and move further away from the Kremlin.In their place come the new Russians -- rich businesspeople and entrepreneurs, willing to suffer the dirt and exhaust fumes for the sake of something they could never buy under the previous regime -- a portion of the territory of the old Soviet elite."Flats in the center sell very well," said Sergei Shamarin, spokesman for the Moscow Central real-estate exchange. The exchange's statistics show that the bulk of such flats are purchased by businesspeople from the former Soviet republics, he said. Bigger flats, most of them former communal flats, are usually sold as office space to companies, added Yelena Velichko, one of the exchange's realty agents.Prices for such apartments sometimes reach $2,000 per square meter, she said. The areas around Tverskaya, Bronnaya and Pushkinskaya streets, Leninsky and Vernadskogo Prospekts and Frunzenskaya Naberezhnaya are considered the most expensive, experts say.Those reluctant to burn their bridges and part altogether with their homes can let them out for thousands of dollars, rent a cheaper flat on the city's outskirts and live on the difference.Many real-estate agencies fill mailboxes with leaflets offering Muscovites "good prices, reliable Western tenants and a cheaper flat to move to."According to an agent of the Home Sweet Home agency, an average two-room flat in the center costs from $1,000 to $2,000 a month, while prices for larger apartments can exceed $3,000."I have a child to raise and she needs fresh air, one cannot breath here," said one woman, who declined to be named. She was moving out of her spacious flat on Ulitsa 1905 Goda to the distant Koptyevo district in northern Moscow."Inhaling this smog is a slow death," she added, pointing to the layer of black soot over her window screens. "Put a sheet to dry on the balcony and it turns black long before it dries. And the car noise just drives me mad."According to Moscow's environment monitoring institute, the air in the center is far from appropriate for a "resort." The level of carbon monoxide on still days reaches up to five times the maximum permitted concentration, said Anatoly Degtyaryov, one of institute's experts.Levels of nitrogen dioxide, another car-exhaust component, reach three times the norm, while substantial amounts of lead and other toxins are also registered, he added.The central municipal district, with a population of over 750,000, has one of the worst records of illnesses among young persons, and neural disorders, said Igor Nadezhdin, spokesman at the city health department.At a meeting of the Moscow government this week, Mayor Yury Luzhkov sharply criticized the work of Moskompriroda, the city ecology committee, and complained of high air and soil pollution.The daily Izvestia quoted him as saying that Moscow, which makes up 0.3 percent of Russian territory but houses almost 10 percent of the country's population, is terribly overloaded. He said every fourth vehicle on the street has a faulty engine which adds to the air pollution.Most central streets have turned into permanent traffic jams and their residents often say they are "kissing exhaust pipes," or "living in the gas chamber." Worse still, the city authorities predict no relief."Generally speaking, I foresee no improvement for several years at least," said Alla Shcherbakova, a specialist in charge of traffic in the center. She added that most central streets had reached the limits of their capacity but there was no money in the budget to carry out reconstruction.City traffic police register 300,000 new cars every year, she said, and the traffic has increased by 30 percent since 1987.