GeoJournal (2006) 66:6581

DOI 10.1007/s10708-006-9017-0

ORIGINAL PAPER

Gated communities of the Moscow green belt: newly

segregated landscapes and the suburban Russian
environment
Mikhail Blinnikov Andrey Shanin
Nikolay Sobolev Lyudmila Volkova

Received: 18 April 2006 / Accepted: 5 May 2006 / Published online: 27 September 2006
Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2006

Nikolay Sobolev
Biodiversity Conservation Center, Moscow, Russia

exclusive older communities inside Moscow

Serebryany Bor enclave and Rublevskoe highway
mansions to less exclusive new developments
along Novorizkhskoe and Dmitrovskoe highways.
Despite high rates of construction, based on
sociological surveys in 2003, only about 11% of
Russias upper class claimed to live in such new
cottages, with the rest owning condos and luxury apartments in the inner city or older detached
homes in villages and small towns. Therefore, not
all the needs have been accommodated and more
development is certain to take place. The environmental impact of such developments is profound. Based on preliminary LANDSAT image
analysis, almost 22% of suburban green belt
forested land within 30 km zone has been converted to new construction from 1991 to 2001.
New construction is now focusing on the remaining fragments of natural vegetation, which will
likely lower air quality and water quality available
for the city. Ironically, the new developments
advertise themselves as clean and green with
massive investments in unnatural landscaping
(seeded lawns, exotic shrubs, river and lake shore
improvements). This investment highlights the
well-known paradox of development in which
people move out of town to live near nature, while
destroying the wild nature they come to enjoy.

L. Volkova
Severtsov Institute of Ecological & Evolutional
Problems, Moscow, Russia

Keywords Environmental impacts Gated

communities Land use change Russia

Abstract The transition from the Soviet to the

post-Soviet period in and near Moscow manifested itself in increasing production of segregated
space both in the urban core and suburban areas
outside of the beltway to accommodate the preferences of the new Russian business and governmental elite. This paper focuses on the residential
single-family housing inside old and new settlements, which are frequently gated. Approximately
260 of such suburban communities have been
developed within 30 km of the beltway during the
past few years, of which a majority have some
form of exclusion mechanism in place, typically
tall solid fences, gates, closed-circuit video surveillance and guarded entry checkpoints. The
difference in exclusivity varies from the most

M. Blinnikov (&)
Geography Department, St. Cloud State University,
St. Cloud, MN 56301, USA
e-mail: mblinnikov@stcloudstate.edu
A. Shanin
Graduate School, London School of Economics,
London, Great Britain

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We left city for the weekend,
It was raining, saw no stars,
There were fences everywhere,
Our chiefs behind the bars.
Gennady Shpalikov

Gated Kapitalist landscapes of the early 21st

century
The phenomenon of gated communities is not
new for Russia. As underscored in the famous
joke song of Gennady Shpalikov, the Soviet nomenklatura chiefs had a habit of perpetually
erecting fences in the attempt to separate themselves from the controlled masses and veil the
very fact of the existence of their hidden ruling
class (Voslensky, 1984). In the 19th century, the
country palaces of the Russian nobility were
equally well secured behind impressive fences
and gates (Rodoman, 2002). The profound changes of the last fifteen years, however, have created
a distinct new kapitalist (sensu Brady, 1999)
landscape of the suburban Russia, which is now
segregated along a different principle of connectedness to the new post-socialist elite. While
the precise analysis of the elite sociological position and the associated host of economic and
political changes are well beyond the scope of this
paper, we attempt to show some of the most
egregious examples of the post-Soviet transformation of suburban space and their impact on the
regional environment by using Moscow as an
example.
Moscow is unique in many ways, both in the
global sense and within Russia proper, which
makes its study both interesting and challenging.
First of all, it is the largest city in Europe, by
population size, at 10.4 million people in 2002
(second is London and third is Paris, if conventional metropolitan areas are used). It is also
third in size after London and St. Petersburg in
terms of its spatial extent as evidenced from
administrative documents and from satellite
images (1,081 km2 in Moscow versus 1,700 km2 in
London and 1,390 km2 in St. Petersburg). It is the
primate city of Russia capturing about 8% of the
countrys population in the most recent Census
(Brade, Nefedova, & Treivish, 1999; Goskomstat,

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GeoJournal (2006) 66:6581

2002), but nearly 29% of all retail sales, 14% of

GDP and close to 30% of all direct foreign
investments and tax receipts for Russia as a
whole (World Bank, 2005). Moscow was one of
only four cities in Russia with over 1,000,000
inhabitants that grew between the 1989 and 2002
censuses, the other three are St. Petersburg,
Samara, and Volgograd (Heleniak, 2003). While
the population of the country as a whole plunged
a whopping six million people, Moscow added
over two million residents in those 14 years.
Moscow is also a northern city, with less than 190
frost-free days as compared to 315 for Paris. Given all of the above, Moscow is the least typical
city in Russia and a unique one within Europe,
which also makes it all the more interesting
because many new phenomena in Russia appear
to start there.
In regards to gated communities worldwide,
studies suggest different reasons for their existence. In the United States the traditional
interpretation according to Blakely and Snyder
(1999) suggests that they started in the sunbelt
states to accommodate a new lifestyle choice of
the wealthy, mobile, upper middle class retirees and post-industrial professionals who had
become increasingly fearful of the inner city
crime (Luymes, 1997). Thus, the main factor of
segregation was mainly one of economics, but
also age, social status and, to a lesser extent,
race. In Indonesia, segregation broadly occurs
along the cultural and ethnic lines, e.g., Christian Chinese versus Muslim Indonesians (Leisch, 2002). In China itself, the main enclosed
group is comprised of foreign specialists, who
have to be segregated from the Chinese citizens
in oases of western lifestyle and security (Wu
& Webber, 2004). In Argentina, gated communities tend to exacerbate the level of
inequality (Pirez, 2002), which also may very
well be the case in Russia.
Studies of such communities in the post-socialist
economies are rare (see this volume), however,
Nuissl and Rinks paper (2005) provides some
insights into the uniqueness of their urban
dynamics. Urban sprawl in East Germany,
including rise of private enclaves in suburbia, is
less driven by purely economic factors as in the
West but more by a combination of political,

GeoJournal (2006) 66:6581

social and economic realities of the post-socialist

world. East Germanys sudden planning vacuum
and powerlessness of local authorities created
more incentive for haphazard development by
mid-1990s, but the lack of state funding hampered
this process at the same time, counterbalancing
the lack of authority.
Since 1999 Russia has experienced a strong
improvement in its macroeconomic conditions, on
the other hand, and this is nowhere more apparent than in Moscow. Here the chaotic mismatch
between the existing tight spatial constraint of the
planned model socialist capital (Saushkin &
Glushkova, 1983) and the desires of a burgeoning
and increasingly mobile and wealthy population is
apparent everywhere. The streets are crowded
with almost three million cars, the public spaces
are increasingly claustrophobic, and the degradation of the city air, water and soils has seriously
impacted major areas within and outside the
beltway (Department of Nature Use..., 2002). The
old and new elites and the emerging middle
class (Gorshkov & Tikhonova, 2004), while relatively understudied and small in numbers,
increasingly clamor for more space, greenery and
solitude, all prized and indeed rare commodities
in the new megalopolis spatial marketplace.
Suburbs, understood here as areas beyond the
Moscow beltway and outside of direct Moscow
city governmental control, act as a magnet for the
newly restless, affluent Muscovites. In itself, this is
nothing new as former Soviet bosses, top Army
brass and privileged engineering and artistic
intelligentsia have enjoyed the perk of a free state
dacha since the end of the Civil War and the
establishment of the firm Soviet rule in the 1920s
(Bulgakov, 1969; Voslensky, 1984).
The changes considered here focus primarily
on the new style of the emerging geographic
landscape, which fully reflects the paradoxes of
the new Russian kapitalism (Brady, 1999). This
new society is different from its Soviet predecessor on a few important counts. First, the new
elites are increasingly distant from their Soviet
archetypes modus operandi as the direct agents
of the state. Todays elite settlements may house
governmental employees as well as business
leaders, but the housing itself is privatized and not
directly provided by the state (except in the case

67

of the upper levels of Presidential administration,

governors and Duma members). It is unfortunate
that the level of governmental control over the
environmental impacts of such developments has
been low. Second, the new communities have
boldly embarked on a new experimentation path
with diverse architectural and landscape design
styles that are no longer under central planning
scrutiny. These range from the early 1990s improved Soviet dacha designs, to grotesque and
chaotic styles of the new Russians mansions of
the mid-1990s (so-called shanghais which for a
Russian ironically connotes hopeless backwardness). They also include more advanced and
visually pleasing designs of the post-Yeltsin period, including imported cookie-cutter Canadian
town homes, Scandinavian and Western European designs and some genuine Russian brick or
wood homes of the most recent period (Fig. 1).
Third, an important distinction is in the change in
the infrastructure. Cars are now ubiquitous and
more affordable than ever, and all of the prestigious new developments are firmly connected to
Moscow by new blacktop highways, including the
most popular Novorizhskoe highway, which has
become since the early 2000s the most popular,
albeit second in price, destination for the suburban developers.
Our study is primarily concerned with the
interplay between the gated communities external designs, their organization of space, and the
impacts they have on the suburban landscape and
biological components of it. The authors have
many decades of experience working with protected natural areas of Moscow and the Moscow
oblast. We all share the desire to perceive,
investigate and understand the ongoing change in
the immediate surroundings of our great mothercity. The study of human perception of natural
environment is a paradigm well familiar to
many geographers (Tuan, 1974), which we believe
deserves much better coverage than it has received to date. Our ultimate goal is to probe the
connections between the human and the natural,
to inform ourselves and the readers about what
has been happening, from the canopy and ground
level perspective of the other, i.e., non-human,
inhabitants of the region. Their sense of spatial
enclosure, gatedness or connectivity of a

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GeoJournal (2006) 66:6581

Fig. 1 Residential areas

on Serebryany Bor Island
in western Moscow
(2005). Source:
M. Blinnikov

landscape will of course depend on the size, trophic level and systematic position of the organism
in question, which makes such research all the
more exciting.

Green belt idea and early dachas

Early socialist Moscow was conceived as a model
capital city along the lines of the urban garden
movement of the early 20th century new urbanism of Western Europe, but with a socialist twist.
The utopian plans of the green city deurbanization project of N. Ladovsky (1920s) or the
green belt of B. Sakulin (ca. 1918), envisioned a
healthy metropolis of perhaps a few million with
workers concentrated in a few relatively homogenous areas that would be surrounded by garden
park landscapes allowing for plenty of recreation,
sports activities and healthy outdoor endeavors
like bathing, biking and strolling. Buses and subways were the means to deliver loads of workers
to the factories, which would occupy less prominent positions than it later came to be in the
reality of the 1930s or post-World War II reconstruction efforts (Saushkin & Glushkova, 1983).

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While the radical plans of the early Soviet urbanists were never implemented, some neighbourhoods of inner Moscow today contain elements of
these early models. For example, the general area
near Kievsky train station along the Moscow river
west of downtown and the campus of Moscow
State University on Leninsky (Vorobyevy) Hills,
both which developed in the early 1950s, afford
spacious views of natural elements (e.g., river
embankments, ravines, old trees in parks) interspersed with more utilitarian and urbane green
space (e.g., playgrounds, flowerbeds and numerous sport facilities). These features approximated
the green designs of the early Soviet dreamers.
The first General Plan of Moscow (Genplan
1935) explicitly acknowledged the need for
adequate green space envisioned as a green belt
around the whole city. Ostensibly, this space
would benefit the citizens by providing clean air
from the surrounding parks reaching deeply into
the city centre. The important remnants of this
early model in Moscow today are Losiny Ostrov
National Park and Sokolniki park in the northwest, Izmailovsky and Kuskovsky parks in the
east, Tsaritsyno-Birulevsky park in the southeast,
Bitsevsky park in the south and Kuntsevsky and

GeoJournal (2006) 66:6581

Filevsky parks in the west. In addition there are

scores of smaller, more urban parks and boulevards closer to downtown and green areas left
along the Moscow River and valleys of its tributaries, many of which are now recognized as
nature monuments by the city of Moscow. The
immediate tension is obvious if one considers how
reality compared to the plan: the documents of
the Soviet period are notorious for their utter lack
of concrete references to the specific beneficiaries
outside of the vague mention of the public or
people at large. In fact, most of the green
spaces in the inner city were early on eyed by the
Soviet governmental elite for the understandable
purpose of creating enclosures for the new masters of the people, who had to be sheltered from
the vagaries of the common life. At the top of
the list is the Kremlin itself, a gated urban residence of the General Secretaries and later President of Russia and his administration. Green
spaces are common inside the Kremlin and are
zealously maintained, complete with lawns,
shrubs, trees, gardens and a falcon squad keeping
the pigeons in check.
Joseph Stalins dacha complex Kuntsevskaya exemplifies the more suburban trend:
strategically located at mid-point (about 5 km
west of the Kremlin) between the downtown and
the western distant suburbs (now Moscow beltway), it is a two-storey compound of 1,000 m2
seated on over 100 ha of woody terrain in one of
the cleanest areas of the city; it was built in 1932.
Over 70,000 trees were planted over a 20 year
period to make the object as inconspicuous as
possible (Gamov, 2003). Stalin, paranoid for his
security, rarely had guests, and when he did, he
would not stay in or near the guest rooms area;
he slept at a different place every night.
The later Soviet and early post-Soviet leaders
continued the dacha living. Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev and
Yeltsin all had numerous, state-provided, sheltered residences of note. A few of these were
located in the near Moscow western suburbs
immediately across the beltway or on Leninsky
(Vorobyevy) Hills. The CIA-produced city plan
of Moscow (1974), which one of the authors had
seen as a bewildered kid, provided the immediate
thrill of identifying the locales of those super-elite

69

residences detectable by obvious driveways depicted to scale above the Vorobyevskaya

embankment in the leafy area across the river
from the Olympic stadium Luzhniki. The official Soviet city maps of the time would of course
omit the driveways and conceal the entire
inhabited presence with the monotone green
color of a city park. Today, Putins rule continues
the trend with over two dozen presidencies
listed in various sources, including at least three in
the immediate vicinity of Moscow. None are
obviously marked on the new, now-to-scale city
plan.
The old Soviet communities were gated and
well guarded day and night. In fact, anyone
approaching the driveway from any direction was
under immediate threat of being shot on the spot
by the security officers of the elite KGB unit. The
only mode of exit and entry was via chlenovozy,
the Soviet copycat of the ponderous limos of the
western godfathers. The fact that most of such
residences were well concealed by the trees, fences and lack of signage increased the threat to the
unsuspecting passerby.

Green belt under siege

Since the beginning of perestroika, the green belt
has come under siege. As early as 1970s a wellknown Russian geographer Rodoman (1974)
noted that in order to preserve the idea of the
continuous green belt it had to be adjusted to the
reality of discontinuous green wedges that
could still support a quality inner urban environment, albeit being interrupted by the existing
infrastructure of railroads, highways, pipelines,
electric transmission lines and suburban settlements. Some of the late Soviet developments
immediately outside of the beltway were quite
extensive; Khimki, Lyubertsy, Balashiha and
Mytischi are all cities that exceeded 100,000
dwellers each by the 1990s. Our ongoing analysis
of the remotely sensed images for the early 1990s
vs. 2000s suggests that in the immediate zone of
the greenbelt about 11% of the available tree
space had been lost to development during the
last 10 years (Blinnikov, Shanin, Sobolev, &
Volkova, 2005). Much of this is a permanent loss

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to actual settlements, which include seasonal

dachas and permanent suburban homes, official
and unofficial vegetable plots (ogorody). Some
space is also lost to roads, parking lots, big-box
retail (defined as buildings over 10,000 m2) and
strip-mall types and some post-Soviet industry
(e.g., food processing, printing, and furniture
factories). Gravel pits and concrete mixing
plants, landfills and chaotic garage developments
complement the picture.
Table 1 provides basic land use conversion
assessment based on the supervised classification
of two LANDSAT images (one from 1991 and
the other from 2001). The area included is outside
the city proper and inside the bounding rectangle
which covers the area approximately south of the
northern tip of the Pestovskoe reservoir, east of
the confluence of the Istra and the Moscow rivers,
north of the Pakhra and west of the confluence of
the Pakhra and the Moscow rivers. Based on the
loss of tree cover, about 12% of the area covered
with trees in 1991 had been replaced with bare
soil or impervious surfaces by 2001, a very high
land cover conversion rate.
We must stress that new residential suburban
developments are characterized as extensive,
leapfrogging and yet relatively compact; most
only occupy 1825 ha. How many of these new
development are gated communities? The official
statistics are unavailable, but most new suburban
poselki (planned developments) advertise some
form of protection. A search on a leading subur-

Table 1 Approximate conversion rates for various land

types for the Green belt zone as inferred from supervised
land cover classification of two LANDSAT images*
Land cover, % of image

1991

2001

Water
Trees
Grass
Impervious and bare soil

2.2
51.2
12.0
34.6

2.6
40.0
10.6
46.8

* Estimated overall accuracy (Kappa) is .9 based on visual

map checks and the authors knowledge of the area. No
direct field verification was undertaken and some change
in the bare soil amount may be due to seasonal crop
removal (1991 image is from mid-May, while the 2001
image is from early October, image analysis by authors)
Source: Blinnikov et al. (2005)

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ban realtor website reveals the following picture

(Table 2).
As of the end of April 2005, 30 poselki were
being actively advertised as new and additional
properties were available in three existing developments, all from one realtor. The median size of
the development was 10 ha, the range was from
2.5 to 80 ha. The prevalent direction is north and
northwest of Moscow (17 out of 30), which corroborates the recent report (IRN, 2004). IRN
examined all available new developments (260)
outside the beltway; 41.9% were found along the
western and northwestern highways. Out of 30
currently available, all but 2 poselki had some
form of protection listed (Table 2). At the minimum, a fenced perimeter and guarded entry or
checkpoint were mentioned. At the maximum,
more than five types of protective equipment or
methods were listed, including in one example
close connection to the local police station and
canine unit, 3-meter high concrete or metal
fences along the perimeter, smart card entry/
exit and guards experienced in police and FSB
methods. The latter point is particularly germane, because, as described by Volkov (1999), a
good share of protective services in the late
Yeltsin period had been captured by ex-police
and ex-KGB employees. Other commonly listed
methods include video surveillance, in-house
alarms and 24-h roving units, that are actively
engaged in paying particular attention that the
security of the settlers and their guests is ensured.
Another prominent realtor, MIEL, does not
provide listings by poselok, however, individual
home listings are available on their website based
on a specified highway/direction and distance
from the Moscow beltway. A random search of a
few specific destinations confirms the point made
above, viz., the vast majority of the new developments are not only gated, but tightly secured by
professional private guards who stay at the site
24 h per day. For example, a search for property
for sale along Novorizhskoe, Pyatnitskoe, Volokolamskoe and Ilyinskoe highways (all west or
northwest direction) and less than 30 km away
from the beltway, yielded 366 listings. We randomly examined 140 in detail, 70 of which were
listed as suburban homes (cottages), 30 as summer

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71

Table 2 Size and security levels promised in the suburban developments (existing* and under construction) in all directions
within 50 km of the Moscow Beltway
Development name

Area,
ha

Access highway
(direction)

Security provided

Alpijski
Avrora
Barvikha-Club

11
NA
6.28

Novorizhskoe (NW)
Egoryevskoe (SE)
Rublevo-Uspenskoe (W)

Belgijskaja dervenya

28

Kaluzhskoe (SW)

Benilux
Bor
Chigasovo-2
Domik v lesu
Evropa

107
8.09
9
10.3
NA

Novorizhskoe (NW)
Starokashirskoe (S)
Rublevo-Uspenskoe (W)
Dmitrovskoe (N)
Ilyinskoe (W)

Finskaya Derevnya-2
Fortuna
Grafskaya usadba
Knyazhye ozero

10
NA
NA
80

Novorizhskoe (NW)
Dmitrovskoe (N)
Kaluzhskoe (SW)
Novorizhskoe (NW)

Lapino-grad

10

Rublevo-Uspenskoe (W)

Lazurny bereg

8.15

Dmitrovskoe (N)

Lesnye prostory-2
Medvezhi ozera
Nikolina gora*
Novoarhangelskoe
Novoglagolevo
Rasskazovka
Sareevo
Sosnovy bor
Staraya Riga
Turovo
U lesnogo ozera*
Velich

15
12.82
NA
NA
NA
NA
2.5
30
6
7.23
NA
20

Rublevo-Uspenskoe (W)
Shchelkovskoe (NE)
Rublevskoe (W)
Novorizhskoe (NW)
Kaluzhskoe (SW)
Kievskoe (SW)
Rublevo-Uspenskoe (W)
Yaroslavkoe (N)
Novorizhskoe (NW)
Volokolamskoe (NW)
Volokolamskoe (NW)
Novorizhskoe (NW)

Waldorf
Zelenograd
Andreevka*
Zeleny Mys

23.5
NA

Yaroslavskoe (N)
Leningradskoe (NW)

Common fence, centralized guards

Centralized guards
Centralized guards, 24-h patrols, video & IR around
the perimeter
Centralized guards, 24-h patrols, video sensors, in-house
alarms, gated entry with guards on duty
Common fence, gate, video surveillance, in-house alarms
Fenced perimeter, guards
Fenced perimeter, guards, video
Gated entry, checkpoint
Fenced perimeter, gated entry, checkpoint, radio-equipped
patrols
Gated perimeter, checkpoint
Guarded settlement
Fenced perimeter, checkpoint, in-house alarms
checkpoint, video surveillance, 24-h patrols of the perimeter,
magnetic keys, electronic surveillance, local police station,
canine unit
checkpoint, 2-level armed guards, video surveillance,
3-m concrete fenced perimeter
Guarded perimeter, 24-h high-tech surveillance, using
advanced police and FSB methods
Double security
Fenced perimeter, check-point, 24-h guards on duty
Guarded territory
Checkpoint, guards stations, patrols, Video surveillance
None specified
Fence, checkpoint, guards, alarms, video
Checkpoint, fence, video
Guarded territory
Checkpoint, 24-h patrols, video
None listed
Fenced perimeter, checkpoint, video, alarm
3-m metal fenced perimeter, video, guards, alarms,
24-h surveillance, patrols
Gated, fenced, guards, entry permits, video
Fenced with good guards

80

Dmitrovskoe (N)

Fenced perimeter, smart-card entry/exit, computer-control,

24-h guards

* Indicates older, established subdivisions; the rest are being planned, under active construction or partially occupied
Source: Based on Zagorodnaya realtor agency current online listings (all new developments listed at http://www.zagorodnaya.ru as of April 2005)

homes (dachas) and the rest as lots available for

development. Among the 70 cottages, 40 were
listed as located in explicitly gated or guarded
communities. It must be stressed that there was
no way to independently confirm whether the rest
were not guarded as well. Among the available

lots, about half were listed as located in guarded settlements. An amusing characteristic of
many properties seems to be presence of reputable (solidnye) neighbours, which obviously
implies exclusivity and should convey a sense of
security to the prospective buyers.

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The total amount of such developments in

Moscow is rather large. The recent IRN report
(2004) estimated that there were about 300 cottage developments in the vicinity of Moscow
(55 km from the beltway) built in the previous
decade. Of these, 171 were on the market in 2004.
The average development had 61 lots on about
18 ha of land (about .24 ha or .5 acres per lot).
The average cottage was 374 m2 in size with the
average asking price of $1581/m2 and a price of
just short of $600,000. The total value in this real
estate of about 10,000 homes approaches $6.2
billion, which would be a little over 1% of Russias GDP for 2004, assuming a GDP of $578
billion calculated based on 29 RUB/$ 1 average
2004 exchange rate (World Bank, 2005).

Inside the beltway: Serebryany Bor

We looked into specific examples of gated settlements both within and outside the city. Of
considerable interest are examples of gated
communities that continue to exist inside the city
of Moscow. These are reserved for the most
exclusive super-elite. Under normal rules, the city
of Moscow does not allow single-family detached
housing (cottages) within its limits (current
Moscow Genplan 2020). The planned developments for 2010 call only for multi-floor apartment
buildings within the city limits. However, some of
the Soviet-era nomenklatura estates have been
grandfathered into the existing city fabric and
continue to be occupied. Limited construction of
new VIP dachas, largely for rent, could be
authorized by the city government based on perceived need or political expediency. We examine
the specific example of Serebryany Bor neighbourhood, which is notorious for its gated dachas
and adjacent nudist beach, and is also a historicalnatural park established by Moscow City government as a natural monument of regional
importance.
Serebryany Bor, which literally means Silver
pine forest, has been known as a prime hunting
estate since the 17th century (Gorbanevsky,
2005). It is famous for its old growth pines.
Summer homes first appeared in the area in the
early 20th century. In 1937, the Moscow river

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channel was artificially streamlined via Khoroshevskoe cut-off, which placed the forested area
on an artificial island surrounded by the river
meander (Fig. 1). During the Stalin period about
200 dachas were constructed here, of which 11
were owned by the MVD (Police), 5 by the KGB
and 20 by Moscow city council members. In
addition to members of the federal government,
many theater directors, actors, newspaper editors
and radio news anchors lived in the area before
and after World War II. Foreign embassies had
their estates here as well, for example, Argentina,
Bulgaria, Japan, France, UK, Korea and Lebanon. Nixon dubbed it Russian Coney Island
and suggested further development during his
historical visit to Moscow in May of 1972 (Business Olymp, 2005).
It is a unique natural complex that contains
approximately 328 ha total with 80 ha under forest, including some 150200-years-old pines and
many hardwoods, 52 ha of built-over urban areas
(large Soviet-era apartment homes) and 70 ha of
VIP dachas, which are the subject of our research.
Recently, the area received some attention as the
government of Moscow passed a new executive
order on the nature monument territory (Moscow, 2005) and eradicated some illegal homesteads in the area (RSN, 2004). The official
control over the nature monument territory
belongs to Moscow city government, specifically
its Department of Nature Use. The real estate of
the old state dachas is likewise mainly under city
control (OAO Mosdachtrest) that is partially
owned by AFK Systema, with close ties to the
current mayor of Moscow and the Department of
State and Municipal Property; this comprises
about 2/3 of the total acreage of the territory.
Other long-term users of the dachas in the park
include the Administration of the President, State
Duma, Moscow Oblast administration, Bolshoi
Theater, Moscow Military District, Federal
Committee on State Property and a few obscure
private organizations apparently representing
very high profile business leaders with good
governmental connections (Note ..., 2001).
ZAO Business Olymp which is a realtor and
developer specializing in VIP-class estates lists
cottages in Serebryany Bor as super-VIP real
estate in the historical natural preserve not far from

GeoJournal (2006) 66:6581

73

Fig. 2 Plan of the

Benelux Residencies
development (2005).
Source: Benelux
Residencies

the centre of the city (Business Olymp, 2005).

Who lives in them now? ZAO lists well-known
governmental figures, State Duma deputies,
ambassadors, famous actors and artists as their
clients, for example, Oleg Gazmanov and Alla
Pugatcheva, both pop musicians and Mikhail
Zhvanetsky, a famous stand-up comedian and
writer. It is interesting that one of the recent
development projects in the area is the gasification of the cottages in Serebryany Bor under the
explicit directive of the Moscow city government
to improve the ecological situation in the elite
residential area by eliminating coal or fuel oil
heating.
Even condos here are super-elite: a square
meter would cost over $5,000, as compared to
$1,800 for Moscow city as a whole by the end of
2004 (MIAN, 2005). The average rent on a dacha
unit would be between $6,500$10,000 per month
(Penny Lane Realty data as cited in Timashova,
2003); only a few of these are available. A recent
report in Kommersant business daily suggested
that only a handful of properties are available at
any given time for rent, and even fewer are for
sale. In 2003 the minimum asking price for homes
in Serebryany Bor was at least $1.5 million with

land lot values approaching $45,000 per 1/100 of a

hectare (Timashova, 2003).
Much of the construction during the 1990s was
done without an adequate city review, and in
violation of existing environmental and construction norms. A local prefecture check in 2003
revealed that 45 houses were built without adequate permits (Timashova, 2003). Recently, the
city announced that it plans to build a general
checkpoint for the whole area near the entrance
in an apparent attempt to introduce more security
and maintain better control over access (Rosbalt..., 2005). A transportation tunnel under the
island is also nearing completion to facilitate
connections from Moscows downtown to the
west side, which will help traffic in bypassing the
island.
The Biodiversity Conservation Center has
carried out a special investigation on the state of
nature in Serebryany Bor under the sponsorship
of OAO Mosdachtrest. The environmental
impacts of gated communities and new developments in general on the local city biota are
numerous, ranging from the obvious destruction
of the habitat due to dacha and infrastructure
construction to recreational impacts and some

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well-intentioned, but poorly implemented, landscaping. The mean size of a dacha plot in Serebryany Bor is .4 ha, of which up to 20% can be
occupied by buildings. Based on our direct
observations, this norm is frequently exceeded.
The result has been a patchwork of forest cover
with patches of about .3 ha in size, and which
negatively impacts many small, but mobile, carnivores (e.g., weasels), insectivores (e.g., European hedgehogs) and amphibians (toads), all
affected by landscape fragmentation. Outright
construction has already destroyed the meadow
habitat of the rare blue-winged grasshopper
(Oedipoda coerulescens) listed in the Red Data
Book of Moscow. Another major impact has been
the construction of concrete fences without gaps
or gates for animals to travel through. Thus,
exclusivity for humans tends also to exclude
middle sized mammals, amphibians and insects as
well.
The impacts of heavy recreation in the area
are obvious and profound. Most affected are
public recreation spaces on the southern shore of
the island (including the infamous nudist area, the
best known such area in Moscow) and the shores
of Lake Bezdonka that house a childrens camp
and multiple recreational facilities. The trampling
of vegetation, spontaneous trail construction and
music blaring from loudspeakers create difficult
conditions for terrestrial small mammals, birds
and amphibians. The official forestry guidelines
for the pine forest suggest a maximum concentration of humans at 12/ha, while in reality 130/ha
is common. Some areas along the beachfront have
lost most of their topsoil which precludes building
of nests by burrowing wasps and bees. Wet
meadows and fens along the lake shore and willow thickets along the Moscow river, on the other
hand, experience much less use. Another problem
is the dumping of trash, which now includes nonbiodegradable plastic beverage containers, disposable diapers and other litter characteristic of
the newly affluent society.
Another group of impacts has more to do with
the permanent inhabitants, including residents of
the elite cottages. One of the many pastimes of
the Muscovites, both rich and poor, is dog ownership and the associated pleasures of walking the
pet in a local park (gated in case of the elite).

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Walking unleashed dogs in the local forest harasses birds, mammals and other small animals.
Stray dogs and cats are unfortunately not only
common but are in fact fed by compassionate
local residents who even provide makeshift shelters to facilitate dogs life in the wild. As a result,
six to seven pups in one stray dog litter have been
observed in the area. Another example of the
misdirected love of nature is the introduction of
squirrels by the Moscow forestry department.
While dogs impact the ground-nesting species,
squirrels exterminate birds in tree cavities and
under shrubs.
Yet another impact that has been accelerating in
recent years is introduction of intensive lawn care,
both by the city park managers and by private
companies on elite dacha lots. With the advent of
more American-style landscaping since mid-1990s,
lawnmowers, pesticides, and mixtures of imported
grass seed have brought about a homogenous and
toxic environment and facilitated the spread of
weeds throughout the island (60 species of introduced plants already occur here, including some
planted shrubs and trees). While most native
perennial grasses can tolerate mowing for a long
period of time, butterflies, beetles and bees are
immediately impacted. New flowerbeds full of
exotic flowers can also lead to more weed penetration into the woods. Timber harvesting, on the
other hand, is practiced responsibly, with less than
5% of trees cut for sanitary purposes in a given year
in selected areas. This practice does not present a
problem in the long run. Some wildflowers are
being collected by visitors, but overall practice
seems to have low impact.
Serebryany Bor is clearly a unique example in
the context of Moscow city. With rising land and
estate prices, the increasing exclusivity will assure
a greater degree of segregation in the future.
However, given the desire of the VIPs not to be
disturbed on the one hand and the popularity of
the Moscow river and Bezdonka beaches on the
other, the future winner is not assured. The more
numerous and less regulated crowds may ultimately have a bigger impact on the local ecosystem, but it is the new concrete fences, mansions,
and exotic planting stock and lawns of the rich
that present the biggest long-term threat based on
landscape impact.

GeoJournal (2006) 66:6581

75

Across the beltway: western and northwestern

suburbs
Based on a recent report (IRN, 2004), the top 10
directions (highways) out of Moscow that experience the biggest development of (mostly gated)
suburban planned communities are listed in
Table 3. Western and northwestern destinations
clearly predominate, while southwestern and
northern ones are becoming more popular, with
southern and especially eastern directions trailing
far behind. Why these destinations? Not surprisingly, environmental quality plays a role, second
in importance only to ease of access to the city
(IRN, 2004). Novorizhskoe highway has been
particularly popular precisely because of the
newly completed road upgrade, which is now a
six-lane road approaching European standards,
correspondingly short commute times, and a
reputation for clean air, water and woods.
A reputation for environmental quality can be
a bigger motivator than the actual quality. In the
Soviet period, it was widely taught in schools that
the wind [at mid-latitudes] blows from the
west, and hence the powerful elite would deliberately construct their dachas west of downtown.
Correspondingly, eastern rayons of Moscow and
suburbs would house factories and worker class
populations, and today they still have a poor
reputation for environmental quality. However,
overlooked seems to be the geographical fact that
Table 3 Distribution of new suburban developments
based on highway directions away from Moscow
Highway

Direction Number of
Percentage
from
developments
Moscow

Novorizhskoe
Rublevo-Uspenskoe
Dmitrovskoe
Pyatnitskoe
Kaluzhskoe
Yaroslavskoe
Volokolamskoe
Leningradskoe
Minskoe
Mozhaiskoe
Subtotal
Total for Oblast

NW
W
N
NW
SW
N
NW
NW
W
W

Source: IRN (2004)

40
36
17
15
14
10
5
5
4
4
150
171

23.4%
21.1%
9.9%
8.8%
8.2%
5.8%
2.9%
2.9%
2.3%
2.3%
87.6%
100.0%

much of the former industry is no longer in

business, so the main source of air pollution is car
traffic. Thus northern and southern sections could
be equally attractive for long term suburban life.
The belated recent boom along the southwestern
Kaluzhskoe highway is proving this point.
The physical terrain and vegetation of Moscow
region has always played a role in development,
in addition to water and air quality. Areas north
and west of Moscow contain part of the Valdai
glaciation terminal moraine complex known as
Smolensko-Dmitrovskaya gryada. This feature
dramatizes the otherwise flat terrain and adds
glacial lakes to the landscape. Also, many
important reservoirs, e.g., Pestovskoe, are located
along the famous VolgaMoscow canal north of
the city. The recent pull of development to
Dmitrovskoe and other northern highways highlights the desirability of scenery. Southern destinations, on the other hand, are relatively less
attractive because of the lack of trees. Moscow
oblast is about 41% forested, but in its southern
half much of the historically forested landscape
long ago gave way to agriculture. Some rayons
have less than 20% forest land, which of course is
not an attractive setting for the exclusive gated
communities that prefer sheltered existence in the
shadow of the big woods, preferably near water
(Samarina, 2005; STK, 2004).
The gated communities of the near Oblast
differ from Moscow city in a few important respects. First, most of them are brand new, built
since mid-1990s, although some important VIP
residencies date from the late Soviet or early
Yeltsin period (e.g., Novo-Ogarevo and Gorki
dachas of the Administration of the President
along the Rublevo-Uspenskoe highway). Second,
most of the gated communities today are built
explicitly as suburban first homes, not dachas,
which traditionally would be seasonal homes and/
or summer cabins. Some of the new homes are in
fact rented year-round. Third, the ownership
pattern of the oblast communities is likely to
reflect the more recent, transitory character of
their residents. For example, both foreign and
domestic petroleum companies must place their
upper level employees in desirable homes near
Moscow somewhere. Few of these people have
historic connection to Moscow city and enough

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relational capital (sensu Gaddy and Ickes, 2002)

necessary to break through the city red tape.
Therefore, they may end up living in relatively
inconvenient suburban locations, while a well
connected Moscow and federal governmental
elite are able to acquire more premium locales
inside the city or in the closest suburbs (Samarina,
2005).
It is difficult to find out who the predominant
buyers of the suburban properties are, since
developers keep lists of their clients confidential.
However, much can be gauged by looking at the
asking price for homes and also the distribution of
the income among Moscow families (Schetinin &
Baranov, 2005). It is clear with the average asking
price for home in the neighbourhood of $300,000
in 2004 (prices have risen 3040% in 2005) and an
average household income (family of three) in
Moscow in July of 2004 of about $24,000 per year,
that it would require more than an average salary
to afford any suburban detached housing. In fact,
only so-called very rich and simply rich
classes of Gorshkov and Tikhonova (2004) would
be able to afford such individual homes (cottages). Some in their upper middle class will
be able to afford condos and newer, larger
apartments in the city, but not individual houses
in any of the developments discussed here.
Who comprises the top two groups? The first
group is the super-elite, similar to the people
living in Serebryanny Bor. Their level of household income approaches several hundred thousand dollars, millions for some. The other group
(simply rich) includes people with annual
household income of at least $100,000 per year.
Based on the Gorshkov and Tikhonova (2004)
data, such people comprise less than 2% of the
total population of the country, 5% if we also add
the upper middle group with incomes above
$24,000 per year. The average household size in
Russia for all classes is three members. Even
among the top two classes, in 2003 only 11% in
fact owned modern suburban cottages that they
used as their primary residence, and an additional
7% had single detached homes, which could
have been older dachas or village homes. The rest
owned large modern apartments in Moscow itself
and second summer homes. Professionally, 37%
of such upper class owners would be entrepre-

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neurs owning companies with many employees,

22% directors and vice-directors of private companies and 9% highly paid professionals (e.g., a
chief accountant working for a gas or oil company). In addition, 7% were self-employed
(attorneys, retail trade, etc.), 7% students, 4%
middle-level managers and 3% Army members,
police and protective services employees
(Gorshkov and Tikhonova, 2004).
With respect to ownership, 12% worked for
state companies, 12% for recently privatized
companies, 39% for newly created private companies and 6% for foreign companies and joint
ventures. With the private sector clearly in the
lead, it is unclear how many of these people
worked for partially state-owned rich companies
(like Unified Energy Systems and Gazprom) or
state bureaucracies at various levels. An interview
with a developer in Odintsovsky rayon suggested
that a relatively large minority of new cottage
owners in the area are in fact local police, land
management and rayon government bureaucrats.
To evaluate how the gated communities of
Moscow suburbia differ from Serebryany Bor, we
specifically looked at examples of communities
located in the prestigious western and northwestern directions that are currently available on
the market in terms of their positioning to the
clients and their potential environmental impact.
Other directions away from Moscow are becoming popular too (Table 3), but at present over
54% of available developments are concentrated
on just three highways: Rublevo-Uspenskoe
(west), Novorizhskoe (northwest), and Dmitrovskoe (north). Of these, the first one is by far
the most prestigious and expensive direction,
since it is close to the super-elite federal governmental properties, including home of the President and top governmental officials. In 2004, one
1 m2 of housing on Rublevskoe was priced at
$2,450 per m2 (most homes cost upward of $1
million), while on Dmitrovskoe and Novorizhskoe rates were merely $1,640 and $1,550 per m2
(RBC, 2004). In late 2004 on Rublevskoe highway, land was valued at $50,000 per 1/100 ha, or
over $5,000,000 per hectare. (Samarina, 2005).
One frequently mentioned example of a welladvertised elite community is Benelux developed
by the Russian water, milk and juice producing

GeoJournal (2006) 66:6581

giant Wimm-Bill-Dan on Novorizhskoe highway

(RBC, 2005; http://www.bnl.su). Benelux twice
received the prestigious Poselok of the year
grand-prix award from kottedj.ru realty in 2004
and 2005 out of 38 competing developments in
and near Moscow and St. Petersburg. It is classified as a class A residence within 17 km from
Moscow and is accessed by a 3.2 km private road
(Table 4) with houses priced over $750,000 in
2004 (and over $1 million in 2005). By 2006 the
development will have 250 homes on about 80 ha,
of which 50% have already been sold in the
construction stage (Fig. 2). The unified Euro-design concept appeals to the upper-crust business
elite: the settlement is divided into three areas
named respectively Belgium (modern style),
Holland (Dutch themes, e.g., windmills and willows) and Luxemburg (largest lots of .4 ha each)
(Fig. 3). Such a concept highlights the unity in
diversity and openness principles of the
European Union and is apparently chosen to
appeal to the internationally conscious clients
(RBC, 2005). One of the hallmarks of the development is low fences inside the development
providing for an open feel and plenty of facade
viewing opportunities once you get in (Fig. 3).
However, the most strict security on many

77

levels is assured to exclude all the undesired

elements from the outside and of course you will
have to have a car to get in.
The development also has a common area
called Amsterdam featuring a fitness and recreation complex, administrative and utility
buildings, playgrounds, shops and restaurants,
and even a house of childrens creative arts
adjacent to the Wild West sector of over 30 ha
of residual woods. In her interview, VP Melnichenko (RBC, 2005) proudly emphasized the
environmental benefits of the project. The
developers chose to avoid construction in (some)
of the forest, and in the sensitive floodplain zone
of the Sinichka river (such encroachments are
unfortunately common elsewhere in Moscow oblast and are illegal). They will embark on creating
an embankment and recreation zone along the
river. Evidently, the river is to be deepened and
widened to accommodate boats. The latter comment is ironic from the animals perspective as
concrete embankments and developed beaches
are not compatible with preserving the wild
character of the river and will surely eliminate
many native plants and animals.
Another famous and even larger development
is Knyazhye Ozero (Dukes Lake) with 600

Table 4 Typology of suburban developments in Moscow region

Category
A Highest

Category
B High

Category
C Business

Category
D Cottage

< 15 km from the beltway, on Rublevo-Uspenskoe or Novorizhskoe highways, on river bank or

lake shoreline, forest of I group (protected, pines), homes > 800 m2, lot size > .5 ha, all central
utilities, Moscow phone number, Internet access, on territory or within 1 km: fitness, spa,
restaurant, supermarket, clinic, children playgrounds and sports facilities. Brick construction,
high-quality design by a well-known architect. Homogenous social milieu, very wealthy neighbours,
no suspicious types, face control. High quality landscaping. Private utility service. Private armed
guards near entrance, CCTV surveillance and alarms of the perimeter. Unified architectural style of
the development, selection of a few house types.
< 25 km in W, NW and SW direction. Forested (mixed forest), homes > 450 m2, Lot size
> .2 ha, all central utilities, Moscow phone number, Internet access, within 3 km: fitness, spa,
restaurant, supermarket, clinic, children playgrounds and sports facilities. Brick, wood or
sandwich panel construction. Homogenous social milieu, very wealthy neighbours, no suspicious
types, face control. Some common landscaping: lighting, paths, flowerbeds. Private utility service.
Private armed guards near entrance. Unified architectural style of the development, selection of a
few house types.
< 40 km in any direction, except E and SE. Open field. Homes > 250 m2, Lot size > .1 ha.
Central water and gas, septic sewer. Regional phone number, within 10 km: fitness, spa,
restaurant, supermarket, clinic, children playgrounds and sports facilities. Brick, wood or sandwich
panel construction. Homogenous social milieu, wealthy neighbours. Lighting, good roads. Hired
contractors for utility service. Guards near entrance
Unregulated cottage developments more than 50 km away from the beltway and isolated cottages
in villages and settlements with no infrastructure.

Source: According to poselki.ru

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Fig. 3 Villa in Benelux Residences. Photo: Benelux

Residencies

Fig. 4 Entrance to the Knyazhye Ozero development.

Photo: Sapsan Corp

homes about 25 km away from Moscow on

Novorizhskoe that is developed by Sapsan Corp.
(http://www.ozero.sapsan.ru). It claims to be the
largest deluxe grade development in the Moscow region and has even more amenities to
accommodate a more diverse base of clients.
These include a roller skating place, bowling,
aquapark, pet hospital, a school and an Orthodox
church (Services? We have everything you
need). Its security includes soundproof fencing
of the perimeter, CCTV surveillance, patrols,
gates, magnetic key passes and electronic alarms
inside the homes. Not everyone is welcome: a
principle of social [presumably income-authors]
homogeneity is observed by the company in
approving prospective buyers. The price of an
average home here is a bit more affordable,
$300,000 in 2004 compared to over $750,000 for
Benelux. The architecture is developed according

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to a pseudo-antique Russian theme. The promotional materials use Russian decor, Slavic-styled
fonts and a deliberately archaic vocabulary are
designed to appeal to the targeted audience (the
word for architect they use is old Russian
zodchii). The main entrance to the development
resembles a gateway to the medieval Russian
fortress (Fig. 4). The development is clearly
positioned to appeal to family-oriented, patriotic
clients with somewhat lower incomes than those
customary for settlers along the Rublevskoe
highway.
The development is located in ecologically
clean Istrinsky rayon within the green belt of
Moscow. Ironically, as in Serebryany Bor and
despite the presence of the relatively unspoiled
natural forest of the green belt nearby, the
intensive lawn care (mowing, pesticides), planting
of exotic shrubs and improvements to the
nearby lakes (water impoundments, cleaning of
the bottom, artificial beach construction) are expected to take place. Of course, the paradox of
this exclusive suburban development is precisely
the same as in U.S. or European countries, viz.,
the desire to live close to nature destroys the very
nature people come to enjoy.

Overall environmental impacts of the gated

communities in Moscow suburbs
The sheer degree of development, the amount of
potential investment (estimated at more than $6
billion in the past few years), combined with
rapidly changing laws and regulations, failing
administrative reform of the federal government and an uncertain future beyond the 2008
presidential elections places the suburban Moscow oblast environment at a tremendous risk,
even compared to Moscow city proper. Moscow
city and oblast are two different subjects of federation with parallel governmental structures,
including separate departments of nature use and
environmental protection, and separate committees on architecture and development. The Moscow city government is a power player in its own
category at the federal level, while the oblast
government is considerably weaker politically
and is greatly influenced by outside forces (i.e.,

GeoJournal (2006) 66:6581

powerful city and federal elites coming from

Moscow city). While the Moscow city Genplan
2020 contains provisions for expanding the specially protected natural areas in the city to about
21.8% from the existing 14% today, no such
document exists for the Oblast.
The existing system of specially protected
natural areas for the Moscow Oblast (Sobolev,
1998) is not adequate in size. It covers only about
5.7% of the oblast and most large areas are more
than 30 km away from the beltway. What does
exist is not well protected. Outside of these limited territories, almost no protection is currently
afforded, except in the forests of the First Category of protection. In the past 10 years the
number of incidents of direct violation of the
protected areas regime have increased due to a
lack of control from the state and conflicting and
competing mandates given to various enforcement agencies at the federal, oblast and local
level. In fact, in many cases, local and regional
governmental agencies themselves are the violators of the existing norms. Private development
plans are approved at the local level frequently by
an insider deal involving under-the-table paybacks (bribes) and no public environmental
review. Recently, development along northern
(Dmitrovskoe, Yaroslavskoe) and western (Novorizhskoe, Rublevskoe) highways have come under more scrutiny in the media because in both
cases sensitive floodplains are involved: the
Moscow, the Klyazma and the Istra rivers, as well
as Pestovskoe, Uchinskoe and other reservoirs
along the MoscowVolga canal. These are critical
components of the Moscow river water supply. A
recent water quality report (Department of Nature Use..., 2002) from the City of Moscow
Department of Nature Use and Nature Conservation suggested that while the water quality
within the city has been slightly improving, the
river is now more contaminated than ever where
it enters the city downstream from the most
egregious development along Novorizhskoe and
other western highways. Common contaminants
include lawn and agricultural fertilizers, pesticides
and petroleum compounds from highway runoff
(fuel and oil spills).
If Rodoman (2002) is primarily concerned
about the chaotic vegetable garden developments

79

600,000 of such exist in Moscow region

(Kachan, 2003), the much bigger threat is now
posed by enclosed permanent home developments built along lake shorelines and riverbanks
and in the forest green belt, even when appropriate engineering solutions are used (septic
tanks, water wells, graded slopes, etc.), misguided
landscape design, unnecessary pavement in sensitive riparian areas, and logging of surrounding
forests contribute to a major negative environmental change. The fact that most of such communities are private and elitist, built without
permits and appropriate environmental review on
public lands should be of a grave concern.
In the early months of 2005, a new threat
emerged, as a new draft of the recently adopted
Forest Code has been released by the Ministry of
the Economic Development (MED). If fully
adopted, the document would essentially abolish
the main protective designation of the forests in
the Moscow green belt, that of the Forests of the
First Category (protected during the Soviet period as sensitive woodlands along streams and
waterways and near big cities). Currently about
62,000 ha of such forests still exist of which
8,000 ha are inside Moscow and are relatively
secure, but 54,000 ha are in the Oblast and are
vulnerable (Fedorova, 2005). Official data suggest
that only 233 ha have been converted from forest
land within the green belt to built over areas between 1993 and 2000 (Department of Nature
Use... 2002), but based on our assessment of
LANDSAT imagery from 1991 and 2001, at least
12% of the 1991 forest cover was lost outside of
Moscow, but within the forest belt, this would
represent a loss of approximately 6,000 ha
(Blinnikov et al., 2005). This political development is clearly driven by the need of the rich to
grab more land. According to a report (Goverdovskaya, 2004), little demand exists at present
for homes more than 50 km away from the beltway, where land prices can be 510% of the level
within 30 km zone. Within the latter, however,
only 5% of the land is presently available for
development, the rest is tied up in pre-existing
land deals and much of it is still forested (the
green belt). Should the new Forest Code (MED
version of 2005) become a reality, a massive
sellout of the remaining 48,000 ha of forests in the

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immediate vicinity of Moscow to the land speculators will be imminent. The scope of the ensuing
destruction belt will dwarf even the biggest
projects of today.

Conclusions
The phenomenon of gated communities is not
new for Russia and is firmly rooted in the historical tradition of the wealthy elite secluding
itself away from the underprivileged and frequently landless masses. High value suburban
developments, a majority of which are gated, are
taking over the Moscow oblast countryside. While
inside the city proper only very few such communities exists, largely grandfathered from the
Soviet period and owned/operated by either federal (Administration of the President) or city
government, the surrounding area outside of the
beltway has lost about 12% of forested land to
such developments in the past 1215 years. While
many of the settlements now are much better
planned than in the mid-1990s and are built by
serious companies with international reputations,
few are built with an adequate environmental
review and even fewer do a good job providing
for genuine nature conservation in and around
such communities. Most of them exist as selfcontained gated enclaves with complete infrastructure to promote U.S.-inspired car-oriented
commuter lifestyle quite disconnected from the
reality outside the secured and gated perimeter.
Many adversely impact local wildlife by increased
levels of landscape disturbance, including intensive lawn care, cutting of brush and trees, creation
of linear impervious concrete fences, artificial
embankments, dredging and damming of lakes
and creeks, and overall fragmentation due to road
and power line construction. The fact that some
of these communities advertise environmental
quality in your backyard does little to mitigate
the actual negative impacts. Many such developments now begin to include schools and churches
in addition to shops and gyms suggesting that the
long-term occupation by families is the desired
goal. This ensures that the current pattern of
increasing segregation based on income and

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relational capital will continue to be perpetuated

well into the middle of this century, just as the last
wild patches of suburban Moscow forest succumb
to the another successful experiment in creating
socially fragmented consumer society.
Acknowledgements The authors wish to express sincere
thanks to Klaus Frantz and Stanley Brunn for inviting us
to submit the manuscript to this special issue. We also
wish to thank Megan Dixon, Melanie Feakins, Dmitry
Sidorov and David Wall for comments on the subject of
this research.

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