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# Yet Another Absurd Piece of News
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/eshche-odna-absurdnaia-novost/
- Published: 2026-06-13T15:02:45.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:25:50.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Observations, Heritage, Society

Yet another absurd piece of news. The restoration of monuments is being removed from independent expert review.

On 12 June a law was signed that, from 1 March 2027, changes the procedure for work on cultural heritage sites. Amendments to Federal Law No. 73-FZ and to the Town Planning Code remove the mandatory state historical and cultural expert review from the approval of restoration projects.

Until now, restoration projects were examined by certified experts of the state historical and cultural expert review (GIKE), and their findings were published.

Now the examination is handed over to federal, regional and municipal scientific and methodological councils. Their findings are not binding on the heritage protection authority and are issued within a period of up to seven working days. A mandatory preliminary stage of research and survey work to assess the condition of the site is introduced.

The reform is being carried out under the slogan that approval times will be shortened. Yet it is obvious that the findings will become less accessible to the public, and external oversight of such work will accordingly become harder. But the most important and the worst thing is that professional assessment passes from independent certified experts to departmental councils, whose opinion, moreover, need not even be taken into account. Formally the procedure has not changed, but the party answerable for it has: a named individual is replaced by a department.

What the preservation of heritage will look like once independent expert review has been removed from it, I think needs explaining to no one.

Yes, the promised lowering of administrative barriers in restoration is a pressing matter, and the review process had for years needed simplifying. But it is being done at the expense of the monuments. When a supervisor who answers with his licence for his public findings is exchanged for a council with a non-binding opinion and a seven-day deadline for its assessment, what results is that, for the sake of speed, the very thing the procedure consists of, namely oversight, is sacrificed