After the incident on Bolshaya Dmitrovka Street, when two buildings and a part of the street instantly collapsed, professionals are saying in unison: This was the first signal. It is necessary to conduct a detailed analysis of the capital's undercity in order to understand what is really happening down there. And finally to work out rules, obligatory for all, on what may and what may not be done so that living "on the surface" could be free from fear. Meanwhile, the authorities have so far kept silent as residents in the capital are getting accustomed to carefully examining each crack in the asphalt - just in case The Price of Error Problems connected with the reliability of Moscow's ground did not begin today. In the 1960s, Comrade Mikoyan together with a delegation from the GDR was nearly killed by a chunk of molding that fell off from the ceiling of the Grand Kremlin Palace . Shortly before that event the Kremlin Palace of Congresses was built. Soon it transpired that the new structure, beneath which a 18-meter underground bunker was also built, became a kind of a dam, disrupting the normal flow of underground water. The water took a detour, but because the wooden piles underpinning the ancient Kremlin structures can only live in a humid environment, the old palaces and cathedrals had it tough, to put it mildly. When the authorities realized what they had done, it was too late. As early as 1968, a mere seven years after the Palace of Congresses was erected, the first serious restoration work in the Soviet period had to be done in the Kremlin. It has been regularly restored and reinforced since. The costs are not being made public. According to people who ought to know, the latest restoration of the Kremlin alone cost $290 million. They say that had not thousands of tonnes of concrete been poured under the Great Kremlin Palace, it would simply have collapsed. This sad story is extremely reminiscent of another, which is unfolding a stone's throw away from t ... Read more