Cultural Heritage and Local Self-Government (Case Study of Svetlanovsky Municipality St. Petersburg)
Authors: Semenov V. A. , Ereshkin V. V. 
Published: May 2023

Because of the special history of the development of St. Petersburg, within the territory of the municipality there are both individual historical monuments and complex cultural heritage ensembles, which include many parts of the ensemble, which in turn, are individual historical monuments.

At the same time, while there is a comprehensive approach to the preservation of the heritage of St. Petersburg at the level of state policy, in modern practice facts have been revealed which do not comply with the above policy, and in some cases are of an offence requiring a prosecutorial response. Existing in the current legislation the procedure for identifying objects of cultural heritage is not objective and requires changes.

The authors believe that the vesting the powers of state control and supervision in a single executive body of state power, the lack of authority in terms of control by local self-government and regulated interaction between the federal and regional executive bodies of state power, the imperfection of existing legislation in St. Petersburg leads to the loss of effectiveness in the identification and preservation of cultural heritage of value both at the regional and federal level, which strains the efficiency of the identification and preservation of cultural heritage at both the regional and federal level.

Considering the emerging negative trend, the representative body of local self-government of Svetlanovskoye Municipality of St. Petersburg took municipal response measures, the issues of cultural heritage preservation were considered at the municipal council, and appeals were sent to the authorized authorities and the St. Petersburg Prosecutor's Office.

It became possible after the 2019 municipal elections, which resulted in the election of non-systemic municipal deputies to the representative bodies of local government, thereby forming open councils, to study in detail the specifics of state registration, identification and preservation of cultural heritage, and to find ways to solve existing problems at the level of the municipality. Exercising the powers in the representative body of local government, the actual representatives of the local community were able to study in practice the specifics of the functioning of local government, in the legal field of public authority to make public the issues of the problem field, to identify vulnerable places in the activities of executive power, to take response measures and make appropriate practical conclusions.

The purpose of this article is to provide a scientific substantiation of the necessity of local self-government participation in detection and protection of cultural heritage objects by the example of some separate municipality of Svetlanovsky municipality of St. Petersburg; to search and offer possible variants of local self-government participation in the issue of efficient cultural heritage protection; to study reasons of necessity of local self-government in the new conditions of modern community of St. Petersburg.

On the basis of the study the authors conclude that it is necessary to take specific response measures by the representative body of local government and the state bodies of St. Petersburg aimed at creating the necessary conditions for the effective identification and preservation of cultural heritage in the modern conditions of functioning of local government in the field of culture.