Chris Doss The Russia Journal ------------------ Toronto Star May 9, 2002 Gigantic ferris wheel to overshadow Kremlin Meals will be served, weddings held on 170m-diameter behemoth
MOSCOW (CP) — The world's largest ferris wheel, soon to be erected on a hill overlooking the Kremlin, will come to symbolize Moscow as much as the Statue of Liberty evokes New York or the CN Tower does Toronto, says a former Soviet arms maker turned amusement park mogul.
"We wanted to construct something remarkable in Moscow, and this wheel will be an absolutely unique thing," says Vladimir Gnezdilov, director of the Pax company, which used to make super-secret equipment for the Soviet military. Pax has since reinvented itself as a builder of roller-coasters, ferris wheels, free-fall towers, giant centrifuges and other amusement park thrills.
Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov quietly signed off on the $20-million rotating colossus at a February meeting of the city-building council. That prompted ripples of irritation among architects and urban planners who say Moscow is sinking into chaos while city hall plays with grand construction projects that end up as unlovable eyesores.
But enthusiasts say the 170-metre diameter wheel, which will be visible from any point in the city, will stimulate tourism, provide an endless source of affordable fun-for-all and levitate Moscow's age-old reputation as a dour and wintry place.
The towering wheel, to be named Rus-3000, will have 60 heated cabins of transparent Plexiglas, each comfortably seating 24 people on recliner chairs and sofas.
A single revolution will last half an hour, time enough for a light meal — served airline style — or a few drinks from the onboard bar.
One special VIP cabin will be permanently reserved for President Vladimir Putin, another for the project's godfather, Mayor Luzhkov. Others may be rented for weddings, birthdays and special occasions.
The wheel will be operational within two years, Gnezdilov says.
Year round, passengers will soar some 200 metres above the Sparrow Hills, an Olympian height from which the entire metropolis of Moscow and its surrounding farmlands will be spread out like a carpet beneath them.
At night the wheel will be illuminated by strings of high-powered coloured lights, creating the effect of a fat, round Christmas tree hovering high above the city.
"I believe this ride will become the new holiday symbol of Moscow, and will revolutionize entertainment in this city," Gnezdilov says.
Up to 10 million people are expected to ride the Rus-3000 annually, he adds, five times more than the wheel's nearest competitor in size, the 135-metre London Eye, now the world's highest observation wheel.
Built in 1999 by British Airways, the Eye has had difficulty turning a profit and has been blasted by critics who say its prominent location — across the Thames from Westminster Abbey — ruins central London's historic image.
A smaller wheel, measuring 60 metres, was also set up at the Place De La Concorde in Paris to mark the new millennium, replacing an older wheel built in 1900.
Pax intends to assemble, own and operate the new Russian attraction — though Moscow city hall will be given an undisclosed stake in exchange for the prized land atop Sparrow Hills — and the company believes it can recoup its investment within two years.
Critics complain the monster wheel is the latest in a string of Luzhkov-sponsored monumental boondoggles, decided behind closed doors, which have wrecked Moscow's architectural harmony and diverted resources from the city's many urgent development priorities.
Luzhkov has been praised for repairing Moscow's notoriously bad roads and building new ones. But the rest of the city's vital infrastructure, particularly its underground sewers, pipes and building foundations, are reportedly in a state of near collapse.
At the same time city hall has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a reconstruction of a huge cathedral blown up by the Communists, a luxury shopping mall adjacent to the Kremlin and a hulking, eight-storey-high statue of Peter the Great which opinion polls show to be the most unpopular monument in Russia.
Critics sat the planned ferris wheel is just another entry on that growing list of wasteful, ugly and unwanted architectural excesses.
"From 200 metres in the air, passengers on this ride will get a clear view of the mess post-Soviet Moscow has become," says Marine Tutcheva, director of Rozhdestvenka, a private architectural bureau.
"They will see deserted industrial zones, roads snarled with traffic jams, dilapidated housing estates and depleted green zones," she says.
"This wheel will further disfigure Moscow's skyline, and become yet another standing joke."