The Khimki landfill on Likhachevskoye Highway, closed four years ago, continues to operate. We were convinced of this on Friday, April 20, by visiting the site and talking with representatives of the operator company. They argued that only a waste sorting point now operates on the territory of the landfill, and waste that cannot be recycled is transported to the Klinsky district. However, we were not given the opportunity to verify this - we only saw loaded garbage trucks entering the landfill; not a single vehicle with waste left the gate in front of us. They didn’t show us how the sorting took place; they refused to let us into the territory, citing instructions from management.

A column of garbage trucks lined up along Likhachevskoye Highway in front of the gates of the solid waste landfill.

The government of the Moscow region emphasizes the importance of measures to solve problems associated with the disposal of household waste. This issue is now particularly acute due to the ongoing protests in municipalities near Moscow, on the territory of which large landfills are located (Volokolamsk, Kolomna, etc.). Officials talk a lot about separate waste collection (SSR) as a sure way to cope with the garbage crisis in the Moscow region. In Khimki, containers for RSO recently appeared in the courtyards of the MP “DEZ ZHKU”, but this good initiative in our city was turned into another window dressing.

Garbage from RSO containers, gray and blue, is dumped together into a garbage truck. In the car, the waste sorted by residents is mixed again.

The actions of the Moscow region authorities, looking for ways out of the garbage crisis, seem absurd and completely devoid of logic. Official sources report processing plants allegedly operating in the region, for example, in Balashikha. But, according to activists of the protest movement, in reality we can only talk about waste incinerators, which cause serious damage to the environment. It is obvious that it is impossible to create a new waste processing and disposal infrastructure from scratch in such a short period of time. The Moscow region authorities again used good old PR instead of real work.

The garbage crisis is not only a problem for Governor Vorobyov. The threat of fatal communal collapse looms over Moscow, which is the main supplier of waste to landfills near Moscow. To say that the crisis arose unexpectedly would be completely wrong. Its reason is that a vicious system has been developing in the capital region for decades, in which the Moscow region was assigned the role of a big garbage dump. For the time being, this suited everyone. Until it smells like an environmental disaster on a regional scale and the end of a career for officials who have been pretending for years that the problem of waste disposal does not exist.


Trucks loaded with household waste are again entering the Levoberezhny solid waste landfill. For this purpose, it is not the central entrance to the landfill from the Likhachevskoe Highway, but the rear entrance, hidden from prying eyes, that is used. The garbage trucks return empty. At the landfill, the work of which is supervised by the Property Management Committee of the Khimki Administration, reclamation work is officially underway: only soil is allowed to be brought there. In July 2012 As part of the governor's program "Our Moscow Region", after numerous protests from local residents, the landfill was officially closed for garbage collection. However, what we saw during our last visit to the landfill testifies to the fact that individual Khimki officials and the garbage mafia have their own point of view on conducting economic activities, and it clearly does not coincide with Governor Vorobyov’s plans to reduce the number of garbage dumps operating in the Moscow region.

Since summer 2012 Above the main entrance to the landfill territory there are such beautiful banners indicating that the facility has ceased its work.


But what happens at the entrance to the landfill from the back side. The photos were taken by us at the end of last week.

And now let us remind our readers of the dramatic history of the Levoberezhny solid waste landfill, full of bloody and heroic moments

Driving along the Moscow Ring Road in the Left Bank region of Khimki, many of you see a huge mountain of garbage every day - the Leoberezhny solid waste landfill. This is an illegally operating landfill that makes the lives of thousands of local residents hell. Back in the 70s-80s, this Khimki district could be proud of its ecology and was one of the most beautiful natural areas of the near Moscow region. It was with the emergence of this landfill and its subsequent thoughtless exploitation that many problems and disasters began in the region, which today stands on the verge of an environmental catastrophe.

Solid waste landfill on Yandex maps.

The landfill was growing at a rapid pace. Established in 1983 on the site of the quarry, within a few years it was level with the ground, and even then conversations began about its closure. However, the closure did not happen, and in the 90s the mountain of garbage was already the size of a multi-story building. At the same time, if previously the landfill stood in a vacant lot, far from residential buildings, over time, residential areas approached it and it began to cause a lot of inconvenience to residents. Especially those whose windows faced her. As soon as the wind rose, a strong stench flew into the apartments. Residents complained about unsanitary conditions, and the number of respiratory diseases and cancer increased. Television came more than once to film reports on the plight of the population.

The situation became intolerable by the mid-2000s, when the landfill began to be periodically set on fire in order to compact layers of garbage and increase its resource. It was then that the first complaints from local residents went to the City Administration. However, the landfill continued to operate no matter what. The storage of waste was carried out with gross violations. By 2009, the height of the landfill exceeded the critical threshold of 50m, and the garbage continued to remain and remain, contrary to all sanitary standards.

In 2010, the landfill's license finally expired. However, they again tried to extend its service life. From this moment on, mass pickets and rallies began for the closure of the landfill. October 26, 2010 The Khimki City Court decided to suspend its work due to gross violations of the law, which resulted in serious damage to the environment. However, the landfill did not stop its work for a day. As local residents said, on the first day after the verdict, garbage was brought in at night, and after that - in the open. Numerous complaints from residents to the Khimki administration did not help. The public was stirred up only by rallies near the walls of the Khimki Administration, as well as pickets by residents near the landfill, which Khimki activist Konstantin Fetisov was not afraid to lead. Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs then drove residents away from the landfill, complaining that “everything here is legal.” Although the residents came with copies of the court decision in their hands...

Then, during the picket, Konstantin Fetisov, the leader of the local branch of the Right Cause party, was detained. A day later, he was brutally beaten near his own home, was in a coma for a long time and miraculously survived. The case of beating Fetisov became one of the most high-profile attacks on public figures in Khimki, along with the beatings of journalists M. Beketov and A. Yurov. Andrei Chernyshev, an official reporting directly to the deputy, was convicted of the attempt on Fetisov’s life. Mayor of Khimki Alexey Valov. Be that as it may, the picketing of the landfill continued. Activists and local residents blocked the entrance to the Khimki landfill, which was operating in defiance of a court order. But this only helped for a short time. The landfill did not stop its work for a day; caravans with garbage came one after another. In December 2011 The head of Khimki, V. Strelchenko, signed an order to close the landfill from June 1, 2012. But the decision remained unfulfilled. In the same month of June, residents again began to complain about the resumption of work at the landfill. Federal officials intervened in the matter (the Ministry of Natural Resources is concerned about reports about the resumption of work at the solid waste landfill in Khimki). And then, finally, with sweat and blood (in the literal sense of the word), with the support of the media, the landfill was closed. The decision was made by the new governor of the Moscow region, A.Yu. Vorobyov, and the story about the closure was shown on Channel One. But even this supreme decision was not enough for the landfill owners. That same year, the landfill continued to operate. An original solution was invented - to transport garbage from the back side of the mountain, hidden from prying eyes. By that time, the height of the mountain was already 80 meters, which is more than half more than the upper threshold.

The rudeness of the landfill owners is easily explained. The garbage business is a very profitable business. The regulatory authorities are few in number and the existing fines are minor. The conditions for making money are ideal. Therefore, there are a huge number of illegal landfills in the Moscow region. For 1,300 illegal ones in the region, there are only 39 legal landfills. Moreover, only 15 of them can continue to operate, since the resources of the rest have simply been exhausted (including Levoberezhny), and they are not going to renew their license in the region. 15 landfills are not capable of absorbing 10 million tons of waste from Moscow and the region per year. For reference, the Moscow region annually accounts for 20% of all waste in the country. There was even talk of distributing garbage from the Moscow region to other regions of the country. But while these plans remain just talk, waste streams continue to flow to existing landfills, bringing fabulous profits to the owners of officially closed but actually operating landfills. People take it seriously, apparently, since the governor’s orders are not their decree.

According to our data, garbage continues to be transported to the landfill to this day!
We ask that local and regional officials pay the closest attention to these facts.

We live in the most beautiful country in the world, and all other countries envy us! Only here in the town of Khimki near Moscow, residents are so happy about the huge garbage dump on the outskirts that they ask them not to clean it up under any circumstances. After all, thanks to this landfill, they will be able to live forever! And they have no other choice. They want to abandon the cemetery.

I knew that many unique people live in our city. They were against the construction of a highway interchange and were happy about the traffic jam. They believed that the new M11 highway on the Left Bank would hang in the air and have no exits to the Moscow Ring Road. Now they are against funerals. Do they buy land for cemeteries in other cities?

I love my city. Every day I see its pros and cons. Every day I understand that our people are specific, and those who come to new buildings quickly begin to consider themselves masters of the city.

Today we will talk about a landfill familiar to all residents of Khimki, Dolgoprudny and the surrounding areas of Moscow. It rises tens of meters not far from the Moscow Ring Road in the Khimki region, which is called Levoberezhny. The toll road to St. Petersburg begins here. Every person passing by could not help but see this terrible mountain.

It is located on the map:

This is one of the largest landfills in the region. The entire territory of the facility occupies 37 hectares. It is covered with earth. There is no life around. They never decided to build a shopping center; the large left-bank interchange was also completely built. Near the landfill there is only the Southern Dolgoprudnenskoye cemetery and another waste landfill, this time Dolgoprudnenskoye.

This is what this left bank miracle looks like.

After the New Year in the city's largest online community "Typical Khimki" A post appeared on VKontakte about the dissatisfaction of residents of the Left Bank region with the future construction of a cemetery and crematorium. Nobody indicates exactly where or why. No one will say what kind of project it is. Just go and sign a petition against it without understanding what and how.

But here's the thing. If you look at the history of this project and all the news. The following picture emerges. A year ago, there were already discussions on this topic with the previous administration. It seems that they have reached a dead end or have moved to the stage of reworking the project. Unknown. The new project looks something like this:

The entire facility offers the following:

In short: a memorial complex with a chapel, an eternal flame, a park, a children's playground, and a complex of office premises. All this, according to information from the network, should occupy about 6 hectares out of 37 occupied by the landfill. Everything else should become a cemetery and crematorium. What is important is that there is already a large, overcrowded cemetery nearby! The new, no matter how it is registered, will allow you not to look for a new site and create a new funeral place. The old one is just expanding.

But Baba Yaga, the residents of the Left Bank microdistrict are against it! From their houses to the edge of the landfill territory is at least 500 meters, no matter how you count. On these five hundred meters there is a multi-level interchange, in comparison with which some houses are dwarfs.

But it would be interesting if they were told: we are not building a cemetery, but there is nowhere else to bury people. What would they do? Maybe it's time to speak Japanese? Cremation, small rooms with a lot of places to store ashes...

What will you choose in your city/district?

P.S.: of course, I should mention the fact that there is news about the possible conversion of a landfill into a ski resort. But apart from news, desire, beautiful words thrown into the wind, and what seemed like a decision made somewhere by someone, there was nothing.

Thank you for your attention! Stay in touch!

The landfill in Khimki near Moscow, which was closed five years ago, will be reclaimed. The investor promises to dismantle the landfill and create a memorial complex in its place, where the remains of the heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812 will be reburied.

Photo: Danila Vasiliev / Lori Photobank

The administration of Khimki near Moscow and JSC Industrial Company Eco signed an agreement on the implementation of a large-scale investment project for the reclamation of the Levoberezhny solid waste landfill with the subsequent creation of a memorial complex. It will consist of a cemetery for 80 thousand graves, a chapel with funeral halls, a park, and a Walk of Fame with an Eternal Flame.

The agreement (available to RBC) was signed based on the results of a competition of investment projects, organized by the Ministry of Competition Policy of the Moscow Region. JSC Industrial Company Eco (hereinafter referred to as Eco) was the only participant in the competition.

According to SPARK, this company was registered in Vladimir in 2011 (the founders are Alexander Valov and Sergey Gerasimov), the authorized capital is 10 thousand rubles, there is no data on revenue and profit, it has a perpetual license from Rosprirodnadzor for waste disposal and disposal activities I —IV hazard classes. In 2016, the company was re-registered in Khimki specifically for this project, Eco director Maxim Biryukov told RBC.

Biryukov estimates the project implementation period to be three to four years, and the amount of required investment to be 5.5 billion rubles, including 2 billion for reclamation. One of the investors may be PJSC CB Vostochny; the bank’s letter of intent to take part in the implementation of the memorial complex project and arranging financing is attached to the package of documents submitted by Eco to the competition commission. A representative of Vostochny Design Bureau refused to answer questions from RBC about the expected volume of investments and the profitability of the project.

Executive Director of the Union of Funeral Organizations and Crematoriums (SPOK) Elena Andreeva considers it a misconception that the funeral business associated with the construction and operation of funeral facilities is very profitable.


Photo: JSC Industrial Company Eco

“At the first stage, an investor needs to invest a lot of money in infrastructure - paths, paths, landscaping. Then all this needs to be supported, that is, you also have to bear the costs,” Andreeva told RBC.

According to Biryukov, the territory for the cemetery will be transferred to municipal ownership - this is required by law; Eco and the administration of Khimki will create a management company to provide burial services. The investor also intends to make a profit from the sale of related goods and services, and from the rental of real estate built on the territory of the memorial complex. In addition, the agreement signed by the parties allows for the creation of a crematorium, on the income from the services of which Eco also relies.

“We want to make an iconic and status object, and the higher the status, the more expensive the services,” the director of Eco told RBC.

According to the authors of the project, all major regional patriotic events will take place on the territory of the memorial complex. In addition, it is proposed to bury and rebury the remains of Soviet soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War, found by search teams.

Biryukov believes that the future facility in Khimki will be given a serious status by the burials of the remains of participants in the Patriotic War of 1812, which are now located in the necropolis of the Donskoy Monastery. This issue is still in the development stage, but the director of Eco has no doubts about its success.

“The cemetery is a cultural heritage site and according to the law they have no right to move it,” a representative of the monastery, who requested anonymity, told RBC. “The burial place and monuments remain immovable. In order to give status to a garbage dump, there is no need to destroy cultural monuments. We have signed a security obligation for the necropolis with the monument protection authorities, they did not contact us,” he said.

The Khimki administration fears that replacing the landfill with a cemetery with a crematorium may cause objections among the population, since the territory is located in close proximity to residential buildings. Complaints from residents of Khimki have already been received by the All-Russian Popular Front, ONF environmental expert Anton Khlynov told RBC. He sent a request to the Moscow Region Ministry of Ecology, from where the answer came: “The participation of relevant ministries in agreeing on the main terms of the investment agreement ensures that the documentation complies with the norms of current legislation, including moral and ethical requirements that must be taken into account when implementing the project.”

Andreeva from SPOK believes that from an environmental point of view, citizens have no reason to fear the construction of crematoria. “Modern cremation ovens are environmentally friendly,” she says.

The Levoberezhny solid waste landfill with a total area of ​​about 37 hectares is located in the city of Khimki, 750 m northeast of the Levoberezhny residential district. It was formed in the mid-1970s on the site of a former clay quarry near the village of Novo-Kireevo, and since July 2012, after numerous protests from local residents, it has been closed to receiving waste.

As a representative of the Ministry of Ecology of the Moscow Region told RBC, 40 million tons of waste have accumulated at Levoberezhny. The landfill is not equipped with a leachate collection and degassing system; there are numerous complaints from the population about the pungent odor.

The interlocutor noted that there are no funds in the budget of the Moscow region to carry out work on the reclamation of the landfill and the Ministry of Ecology supports the investment project, especially since it is the only one in the Moscow region that involves the reclamation of solid waste landfills at the expense of the investor. In addition to reclamation, the purpose of the agreement is to resolve the issue of an acute shortage of burial places in Khimki and the Moscow region.

The city administration did not respond to RBC's request about how pressing the problem of lack of burial places is for Khimki. A representative of one of the Khimki ritual agencies confirmed to RBC that there was a problem. “In Khimki, all cemeteries are overcrowded and are actually closed for new burials; people are mostly buried in Lobnya,” the source said.

It is planned to dismantle the landfill, and process metal, rubber, polymers and other useful fractions at a waste processing plant, which is supposed to be located nearby, Biryukov told RBC. According to him, such a reclamation project has not yet been implemented in the region. The head of Eco also believes that the company’s revenue from the sale of recyclable materials could amount to several billion rubles.

At the same time, the general director of the Spetsgeology company, which carried out the project for the reclamation of the Kuchino landfill, Viktor Trushin, doubts that all the waste can be recycled. “Many fractions have decomposed during this time, they will have to be transported somewhere, and there is now a shortage of testing capacity in the region,” he told RBC.

On the site of the largest landfill closest to Moscow, a memorial park with a cemetery and military graves could be built at a total cost of 5 billion rubles. CJSC Industrial Company Eco, which is engaged in the reclamation of landfills, proposed to the government of the Moscow region to build a 70-meter memorial in the shape of a truncated pyramid on the site of the garbage mountain of the Levoberezhny landfill, which was closed by the authorities in 2012. Now, next to the mountain of garbage in the north of the Moscow Ring Road, there is already a cemetery, and a new complex would look appropriate. According to the authors of the project (the editors have a presentation), a columbarium will also be built around the memorial for residents of nearby cities, that is, a cemetery intended for burying ashes after cremation, a chapel and, accordingly, several crematoria.

Mayan pyramid on a trash foundation

The landfill body is unstable. The landfill is burning, and fires are coming to the surface; is spreading due to the lack of final covering, sediment drainage system and filtrate collection. From 2008 to 2012, waste was placed in the body of the landfill in violation of all environmental standards and regulations, says the presentation of the Eco company.

Now the landfill, which appeared on the site of the quarry in 1983, is officially closed; it occupies 37 hectares and is considered one of the largest in the region. The Eco company’s presentation states that more than 40 million tons of waste have accumulated at the landfill. Despite a series of decisions by local authorities at various levels to close the landfill and fines, the management company continued to accept garbage, and this caused protests among local residents: they saw garbage trucks from their windows, and the scandal then reached the Ministry of Natural Resources. However, later bloggers reported that garbage continued to be taken to the landfill, only from the back side.

At various times, they wanted to turn the landfill into a ski resort, a plant for processing accumulated waste, and an asphalt plant, as noted in the Eco presentation, but the projects constantly faced environmental problems and the payback period was too long (the payback period for the ski resort took 20 years, says a source in the Moscow region government) and the dissatisfaction of the citizens themselves.

Based on the sketches, the complex, similar to the Mayan pyramids, will be built in the form of a truncated pyramid the height of a 25-story building, which is about 70 m. The building will have several paved terraces (there are five in the image in the presentation, not counting the upper platform), Granite urns with the ashes of heroes brought “from other places” (reburial), a number of benches and lanterns can be installed on them along the perimeter. Stairs will lead to the top from several sides, widening to the top, on which a tank, stele and Eternal Flame can be installed. On one of the slides of the presentation, “Eco” emphasizes the status of the memorial as “an important social object and a zone of attraction for the patriotic education of youth,” as a “world-class funeral facility.”

Cemeteries are more profitable to build than resorts

The concept of the memorial park will include<...>a park area, a memorial complex, a chapel and a number of elements of a single ensemble of a park and memorial complex, the project of which will be developed as the second stage of reclamation<...>as its logical continuation,” writes the general director of the company, Maxim Biryukov, in a covering letter to the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Management of the Moscow Region, Alexander Kogan.

First, you need to take out the entire facility on a long-term lease from the municipality of the city of Khimki, the presentation indicates, then the company can reclaim the landfill, that is, rid it of rotten waste and chemicals, and also set up a system for collecting toxic gases released. In particular, it is proposed to develop a system of trenches for collecting filtrate and gases, applying insulating materials and soil 10–11 m thick. After completion of reclamation, the company is ready to begin construction of the park itself.

In total, the project, according to the calculations of its initiator Eco, will require 5 billion rubles, of which about 1.5–2 billion rubles will be spent on reclamation (by the way, the cadastral value of the land under the landfill is 1.41 billion rubles). According to a source in the government of the Moscow region, the investor promised to find investments on his own and recoup them through the sale of places in the future cemetery, which will operate as part of the memorial complex. The investor is Austrian, Biryukov himself told Izvestia, but refused to disclose his name.

The memorial will occupy about 6 hectares, which is almost three times less than the area now occupied by the mountain (17 hectares) 87 m high, and several times smaller than the entire landfill (37 hectares). The remaining space (70, or 26 hectares) can be given to a cemetery with a columbarium, several crematoria, as well as to the regional state budgetary institution “Ritual”, which is proposed to be created “by analogy with the Moscow [similar] institution.” According to Biryukov’s calculations, about 200 thousand places for columbar urns can be built here.

The company explains the choice of developing the landfill as a columbarium by “an acute shortage of land for burial throughout the Moscow region.” According to Eco, “there is only a few months left for burial of the residents of Khimki,” the need for only Khimki and neighboring Dolgoprudny is 78.63 hectares. Places in the cemetery can go either to Khimki and Dolgoprudny, or to the entire region; on the slide about the “additional advantages” of the project, the company writes about the columbarium as “an object of bargaining with Moscow regarding the burial of its residents.” In the last few years, when cemetery plots began to be put up for auction, the average cost of a burial plot in Moscow reached 350 thousand rubles, which often leads to outrage, Biryukov says.

In addition, the authorities will be able to significantly save on the burial of citizens - during the management of the cemetery and the return of investments (the authorities are invited to conclude an investment contract or concession with the investor, Biryukov advocates an investment contract, the authorities, according to him, want to conclude a concession) the company is “ready to take on social burials and cremation carried out at public expense,” the return on investment period is estimated to be at least 10 years.

This is, in fact, the first such project for the reclamation of this landfill, in which the authorities do not need to invest - all the money is provided by the investor. Previous projects were cut off largely due to lack of money in the budget. The investor plans to return the funds invested in the reconstruction of the landfill by selling space in the columbarium; they say that the creation of a new cemetery on the site of the landfill “would ease the problem of the shortage of burial places,” says a source close to CJSC Industrial Company Eco. - Now on the territory of such memorial complexes the cost of a grave site ranges from 1.5 million to 6 million rubles, for example, at the Troekurovsky cemetery [considered one of the prestigious cemeteries in Moscow, also adjacent to the Moscow Ring Road and has its own crematorium] it reaches 8 million rubles . The cost of a place for a grave is hundreds of times more expensive than the cost of a place for an urn. Burials here will be made in granite walls; there are no columbariums of this type in Russia. If everything works out, I think the memorial project can be nominated for an architectural nomination.

According to the SPARK database, this company was registered in 2011 in the city of Vladimir by Alexander Valov and Sergei Gerasimov, there is no data on revenue and profit, and the authorized capital of Eco is only 10 thousand rubles, which has not changed since the company was registered. The only available accounting records for Eco in Rosstat are for 2013, and, according to it, its assets amounted to only 65 thousand rubles. The company was created specifically for this project and did not conduct financial activities, Biryukov claims.

As for the owners, Sergey Gerasimov, in addition to Eco, is the current general director of the Vladimir company Stroyservis, which was registered in January 2014. The company's revenue for 2014 amounted to 21.8 million rubles, and the declared net profit was 88 thousand rubles. Gerasimov also owns 91% of Impulse LLC, which was registered in February 2009 in Moscow and is engaged in the trade of crushed stone. The company's financial statements are available only for 2012, when the company received government orders for the supply of crushed stone to the City Roads Control Center in the amount of 10.4 million rubles - this is the company's entire revenue for 2012, and the declared net profit is 25 thousand rubles. In May 2015, Gerasimov registered another company - Vladimir Construction Company LLC, where he owns 50%.

Alexander Valov, together with Eco, was the head of three more companies in the Vladimir region - Plazma LLC, Kontinent Company CJSC and Opolye TOO, the companies were liquidated at the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011, all companies specialized in working with waste and metallurgical scrap. At the same time, in Moscow and the Moscow region, several companies are also registered with Valov that work with waste and scrap, all of them are operating - Metalltransstroy LLC, STTK LLC and Kontinent CJSC, Valov’s share in them is 27, 19 and 16% respectively. All Moscow companies were registered more than 10 years ago, their authorized capital is 10 thousand rubles, but the financial statements of these companies are not disclosed.

“Eko” is engaged in the reclamation of landfills, Biryukov points out in a letter to Kogan. According to the government procurement website, Eco has no experience in the construction of memorials or the construction of cemeteries, but the companies associated with it, in particular, according to Biryukov, Promalyans Group of Companies, participated as a subcontractor and performer in the construction of two biogas mini-CHPs at Kuryanovsky water treatment plant (€23.8 million) and at the treatment plant in Lyubertsy (€65.7 million) - all for Mosvodokanal, as well as the sodium hypochloride production plant of the Austrian EVN AG for €175 million. Last year, the plant after EVN's conflict with the Moscow mayor's office (/news/588665) was transferred to the same Mosvodokanal for €250 million. Mosvodokanal was unable to provide an immediate comment. EVN AG spokesman Stefan Zach could neither confirm nor deny the participation of structures associated with Eco in the construction of the plants.

To approve a new company project, a decision from the regional government is required. "Eco" is negotiating with the mayor's office of Khimki, as well as the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources Management (regarding the reclamation of the landfill) and the Ministry of Consumer Market and Services (on the project of the memorial and organization of the cemetery) of the region, says a source in the Moscow region government. In general, the ministries considering the project have no complaints about it, the mayor’s office of Khimki agrees, and have already sent it for approval to the Ministry of Investment and Innovation of the Moscow Region, the interlocutor continues, in the first quarter of 2016, the project with the business plan being prepared by Biryukov will be considered by the government itself at special “investment hour”. It is possible that a preferential landfill rental rate and a reduced income tax may be applied as relief.

The Ministry of Ecology and the Ministry of Investment of the Moscow Region, as well as the administration of Khimki, did not respond to requests. The press service of the Moscow Region Ministry of Consumer Markets, which oversees the cemetery, confirmed to Izvestia that a proposal for a memorial pyramid had been received, but indicated that they would leave the decision on the issue to the Ministry of Ecology.

So far, no one in the world has tried to replace landfills with columbariums with memorials - as a rule, after reclamation, parks are built on the site of landfills, as indicated in the project presentation. There are also examples when garbage mountains were adapted for winter sports, says Alexander Tsygankov, an employee of the toxic department of Greenpeace Russia. According to the ecologist, the close location of the Levoberezhny solid waste landfill to residential areas (about 500 m) is a manifestation of the garbage crisis in which Moscow finds itself: due to its rapid growth, the metropolis is running into landfills left over from Soviet times. The problem of this landfill is very acute - gases are actively accumulating there, adds Tsygankov. Because of this, the landfill regularly catches fire, smoke from it spreads to the entire nearby neighborhood, and the population is unhappy.

However, replacing a landfill with a cemetery may also cause objections among the population; in addition, the crematoria will be located in close proximity to residential areas. “Eko” understands this “moral aspect of burials on the site of a former solid waste landfill” “as an investment risk that will be offset by significant investments in the formation of a positive image of the project,” the presentation states. According to environmental standards, the installation of crematoria in such close proximity to residential areas is permitted, the sanitary protection zone for them is from 500 to 1000 m depending on the number of furnaces, in addition, the filtration system helps to minimize the negative impact, says one of the Rosprirodnadzor inspectors who wished to stay unnamed.

In addition to the garbage context, weak demand for columbaria may hinder

True, not everyone in the Moscow region government is in favor of reburying the remains of heroes and unknown soldiers at the dump site, as the Eco company proposes. As for the department headed by Sergei Shoigu (he worked as governor of the Moscow region from May to November 2012), an anonymous interlocutor at the Ministry of Defense noted that the procedure for re-registration and reburial can take “more than one decade” and involves the installation of such a burial place for registration with the Ministry of Defense. If there is no reburial and only a stele is installed, then only the Ministry of Culture should be notified.

The presentation did not arrive at the Ministry of Defense. Until the project has been approved by the Government of the Moscow Region, it is pointless to assure the Ministry of Defense,” said a source in the ministry.

There are no architectural analogues to such a structure in Russia, he added. Elena Tsunaeva, the executive secretary of the Russian Search Movement, has not heard of such structures either. In her opinion, reburying the remains at the foot of the memorial is unethical - the religious feelings of citizens may be hurt, and there may always be relatives who disagree with cremation, she emphasizes.

It is not clear how the installation of the memorial itself is played out, because, as a rule, they are all thematic and somehow historically tied to the installation site. The installation of a memorial at the landfill site is, in principle, very ambiguous,” adds Tsunaeva.

Even if the authorities approve the project, it is unlikely that it will be able to quickly pay for itself - the crematoria built in Russia and Moscow are only 50% occupied, the crematorium at the Troekurovsky cemetery is idle, and in the Moscow region there are no crematoria at all, says the vice-president of the Union of Funeral Organizations and crematoria Alexey Suloev.

In Moscow, according to Suloev, there are about 6-10 crematoria; there are columbariums in cemeteries, but there are no separate columbariums. If the state is obliged to provide a free grave site, then cremation is an exclusively paid procedure, he adds.

On the other hand, notes Suloev, the creation of a regional state unitary enterprise (by law, all cemeteries in the country must belong to municipalities and be managed by state-owned enterprises), proposed by the investor, may solve the problem of loading - people can be brought from nearby areas of the Moscow region and Moscow, who are also free There are no cemeteries closer than 27 km to Moscow. Places in the columbarium may also be of interest to relatives of those beneficiaries who received a bad burial place, says Elena Andreeva, executive director of the union.

But due to the low cost of cremation beds [several tens of thousands of rubles], it is difficult to return the investment in 10 years. Perhaps the project is not being initiated for the sake of building a memorial with a columbarium, Suloev believes.

It is possible that the investor simply needs to sell the land for the removal of which he was paid good money, says a source close to the company, or, for example, scrap material suitable for processing may be found at the landfill. There is no useful waste at the landfill, and the company does not have unnecessary land, Biryukov claims.

And this is not to mention the fact that private cemeteries in Russia are prohibited in principle; a new law legalizing private cemeteries and columbariums has never been adopted [meaning the Federal Law “On Burial and Funeral Affairs,” which was introduced for consideration in May State Duma (/news/584059)], he added.

If the project pays off, similar columbaria could be organized at other waste landfills closed by the authorities, located 15–20 km from the Moscow Ring Road, such as the Salaryevo landfill, Biryukov believes.