General
Trying to Save a Concrete ‘Monument to Corruption’
An icon of socialist modernist architecture in the capital of the former Soviet republic that is now Moldova has been at the center of a tussle between corrupt developers and preservationists.
The 17-story hotel, a giant and graceless gem of socialist modernist architecture cherished by aficionados of concrete, took four years to build in the 1970s and became a proud symbol of the Soviet Union’s embrace of modernity.
Reduced to a ruin in the more than 30 years since Moldova gained independence, the National Hotel, in the capital of Chisinau, is today a study in the post-Soviet dysfunctions of one of Europe’s poorest countries.
Wealthy tycoons have wrangled over it, shuffling ownership between opaque offshore companies, while competing groups of graffiti artists have turned its facade into a huge tableau displaying their rival loyalties. One group daubed it with the colors of the Ukrainian flag, then a group opposed to Ukraine painted a Russian military symbol. In June, a new group painted the exterior with the colors of Moldova’s flag.
Prosecutors and preservationists have struggled to understand how what was once a prize piece of real estate has fallen on such hard times.
“It is a monument to corruption in Moldova,” said Valeriu Pasa, the head of WatchDog, a Chisinau research and anti-corruption activist group.
“It moved from one oligarch to another, but our justice system has for years failed to hold those responsible for the mess accountable,” he added.
