'Rent-a-Crowd' Attended Tower Hearings
By Sergey Chernov
Staff Writer
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Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Actor Vladimir Zamorochinsky supports the Okhta Center at the public hearing.
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An ardent, eye-catching supporter of the Okhta Center (Gazprom Tower), who was gesticulating vigorously and shouting down opponents at the Sept. 1 public hearing that was marked by beatings and arrests of the tower’s opponents, has been recognized as a professional actor. Opponents of the Okhta Center see it as another indication of the fact that ODTs Okhta (Okhta Public and Business Center) — the Gazprom structure in charge of the construction of the RMJM-designed tower — used a “rent-a-crowd” at the hearing. Vladimir Zamorochinsky, who did not introduce himself while making a speech through the microphone in defense of the controversial 396-meter skyscraper planned to be built close to St. Petersburg’s historic center, has appeared in a number of television crime series such as “Menty” (Cops) and “National Security Agent.” Some of the photos from the hearing show Zamorochinsky standing aggressively over Yelena Malysheva, an activist with the anti-tower preservationist group Okhtinskaya Duga. “He was telling me not to prevent people from speaking in support of Gazprom and not to jump in with my questions,” Malysheva said on Thursday. “He tried to push me away with his belly, and trod on my feet. I said to him that the microphone had been offered to me, and that he was not “the woman” [to whom the moderator had indicated the microphone should be passed] and he told me to shut up. He said we were bothering the public.” According to Malysheva, many of the people in the packed conference room of the Karelia Hotel were members of a pro-tower rent-a-crowd. “Firstly, it was all the rows at the front, secondly, rows at the back, as well as the majority on the left and right,” she said. Tamara Vedernikova, who was also at the hearing, said that when Zamorochinsky took hold of the microphone, he did not deliver a speech, but instead addressed Malysheva directly. “He didn’t introduce himself; he started a dialog with Malysheva,” she said. “He structured his dialog in such a way that everybody else would hear it, but it was not a question, not a statement — he had simply decided to teach a ‘girl’ some sense. He was recognized there in the room, there were shouts of ‘He’s an actor,’ so he was exposed at once.” After verbally attacking Malysheva, Zamorochinsky left the hearing.
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For The St. Petersburg Times
Zamorochinsky (r) as Major Faibisovich in the 'Cops' television show in 2000.
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Vedernikova said that some members of the rent-a-crowd defected to the Okhta Center’s opponents during the course of the hearing. “It’s difficult to calculate the volume of the rent-a-crowd, because some of those who had been pro-tower began to actively support its opponents,” she said. “It could be seen from the reaction to the speeches; the support of the tower’s opponents was more powerful.” While ODTs Okhta has kept silent about the use of actors, Zamorochinsky was effectively exposed in the blogs of the Okhta Center’s opponents, who provided screen shots from a television series and a pop music video in which he had taken part. On Sept. 5, several days after the hearing, the pro-Okhta Center web site Vkrizis.ru admitted that Zamorochinsky was at the hearing, but claimed that he had gone on a voluntary basis. “I came because I am not indifferent to St. Petersburg,” the web site quoted him as saying. “I don’t see anything bad in the fact that a new world-class building will emerge. I wanted to find out more about the project, but [the opponents in the audience] wouldn't let the people [representing the project] on the stage speak; there were constant insults and rude remarks from seats. I asked people to behave in a decent and civilized way, and I was immediately accused of having sold out.” The use of the rent-a-crowd at the hearing has been confirmed by many present at the hearings, including Kirill Strakhov, a Yabloko party deputy for the Finlyandsky Municipal District, whose report was published on Yabloko’s local web site. According to Strakhov, the hearing’s administrator was confused by Strakhov’s deputy’s badge, and took him straight to the seats where Okhta Center’s hired supporters, who referred to their intentions as a “job,” were sitting. Yabloko activists Ksenia Vakhrusheva and Alexander Shurshev alerted the police to a man who had been handing out money to a group of people who appeared to be part of the rent-a-crowd close to Hotel Karelia, and who had attacked them when Vakhrusheva took a photograph of the situation. When detained, the man, Alexander Kaganovich, admitted he was handing out money. “It’s not illegal to give away money in the street,” he said. The statement they gave to the police has not yet yielded any result, Shurshev said by phone on Thursday. During a previous Okhta Center hearing in June 2008, there was also a controversy involving the rent-a-crowd, many of whom turned out to be extras (or would-be extras) hired at Lenfilm. A taped briefing of their task and the sum of payment they were given (400 rubles, or $17) were leaked to the press. Public admissions were later made by several members of the rent-a-crowd. Despite the reported violations, ODTs Okhta and the Krasnogvardeisky District Administration declared officially that the hearings had been held as required, both in 2008 and 2009. The opponents’ demands for the results of the hearings to be cancelled were rejected.
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