So long, Sergei’s Courtyard

Departure of Society for Protection of Nature in Israel will mark last stage in return of the site to the Russian government.

By PEGGY CIDOR
Sergei's Courtyard 311 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Sergei's Courtyard 311
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Forty years of local history will be coming to an end in a few weeks when the Jerusalem branch of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel leaves its premises in the historical site of the Sergei Courtyard. The eviction verdict, which fell like a guillotine on the SPNI employees and their many supporters five years ago, will be implemented by the end of next month, after the High Court of Justice ruled that the famous courtyard, built for Russian pilgrims in 1890 by the czar’s son, had to be handed back to its owners, the Russian government.
To this day, it is not clear how and why former prime minister Ariel Sharon agreed to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s request to regain ownership of the Russian Compound.
“A Russian (and a foe) gaining a foothold in the heart of Jerusalem” was not the worst reaction expressed by various personalities and politicians from both the right and the left wing. Members of the SPNI knocked on every door and mobilized all their supporters, but to no avail. The last resort, a petition to the High Court, ended in the disappointing ruling that the Russians had the right to take back their property.
Time was of the essence. In a last-ditch attempt to reverse the decision, over the past two years the SPNI organized many activities in the courtyard and publicized them highly. Not that there had not been enough enjoyable events before, but the magnitude and the variety of the events – especially the musical ones – were ramped up. The prevailing attitude was “Let’s show everyone how wonderful this place is as long as it is in our hands” – and it worked. The municipality and Mayor Nir Barkat tried time and again to have the decision reversed, but with no success.
The Russians were resolute – they wanted the courtyard and the whole building back in their hands, and they wanted it now.
The first to leave were the employees of the Agriculture Ministry, which occupied a wing in the building. Then it was the turn of the Jerusalem branch of the National Council for the Preservation of Historical Sites which, ironically, had to leave the place that had become so identified with its mandate.
And now it’s close to final curtain time, with the last tenants, the SPNI, leaving soon.
But as much as the building and the courtyard are certainly among the most beautiful sites in the city, one wonders if the drama has not been a little exaggerated.
After all, the issue is about a small organization moving from one place to another. For the first stage, the SPNI offices are moving to the JVP media center on Hebron Road, where they will have plenty of time to find a new home. Not exactly a homeless situation, and certainly not being sent out into the wilderness. On the contrary – the JVP media center offers a lot of technological facilities that were not always accessible in the old Russian building.
Asked to describe what was so terrible about moving, Sigalit Rahman, director of the Jerusalem branch of the SPNI, heaves a heavy sigh. “Indeed, the physical conditions were not always easy in the Sergei building,” she admits. “For example, we had to do without air conditioning in parts of our wing because in a preserved building you are not authorized to install air conditioning and, of course, we had to set an example. For so many years, this place has been identified with the need to protect nature and to love it. Anything that was connected to nature, ecology, environmental issues, love of this city took place here, in this architectural gem,” she continues. “Like nowhere else in the country, all the struggles to raise environmental awareness among the residents as well as the authorities were born here, were inspired by this very site. We didn’t work out of a hut or some crumbling old structure but right from the center of the city, from a beautiful site that we have learned to love and protect – at first.”
Rahman explains that in other parts of the country when, in the 1970s, a few people here and there began to talk about the environment and the preservation of nature, the issue was far from being widely implemented. In Haifa, Tel Aviv and elsewhere, nature activists were concerned with small, remote, neglected locations, while in Jerusalem the connection between the love of nature, caring for the environment, respect for the architectural history of the city and the country and the importance of taking care of the environment were easier to grasp when operating from such a location.
“Anything that had to do with nature, with ecology, with developing a sustainable environment, as well as organizing tours and excursions in the region, came through the Sergei Courtyard. We were the first to develop a consulting service for excursions in terms of maps, paths, knowledge of nature – and it all happened here, in this building and this courtyard.
In fact, we ran the first informal green education facility here,” says Rahman.
One of the most well-known initiatives of the Jerusalem SPNI in the Sergei Courtyard was the Shuk Kah-Ten on Fridays – a market for swapping items. Its aim was to foster a different attitude toward consumption habits – recycling and lowering consumption as part of the larger attitude of protecting the environment. Five years ago, the courtyard initiated a project to encourage mud building, led by teachers and students of the Bezalel School of Arts and Design, which was attended by many local teens.
Community gardens were born in the Sergei Courtyard and spread to almost all parts of the city, involving nature preservation and awareness, with voluntary work and civilian service for youth who didn’t do military service. As Rahman points out, the fact that such a central location, in such a beautiful historical site, served as a living and active center for increased awareness about nature and environmental issues was obviously part of its success – which resulted, among other things, in some leading projects in the city.
The solar panels on official buildings (including the Safra Square buildings), the compost waste project in the Young City communities in Kiryat Hayovel and Kiryat Menahem, the community gardens and the vast municipal project to preserve and save the city’s trees are just a few of the environment projects that were inspired by the activities in the Sergei Courtyard.
DEPUTY MAYOR Naomi Tsur is a former director of the local branch of the SPNI and founder and head of the Sustainable Jerusalem initiative. In her position, she is in charge of environmental and preservation issues in the city and heads the preservation committee on the city council, a committee that was created when she assumed her position. The connection between her activities on the city council and the city administration in that regard is clear – it all started at Sergei’s Courtyard, where the first meetings of Sustainable Jerusalem were held.
Today, the municipality is involved in seeking an alternative location for the Jerusalem SPNI. The municipality is ready to take an active part but expects other bodies to take part as well, in addition to the SPNI and the government. A permanent solution will be found sooner or later. But for now, the question is what kind of place and activities the new home will provide.
“What we did in recent months,” says Rahman, “was enhance the activities in the courtyard, with a lot of emphasis on its particular capacities, in order to send a message – that this was a place that brought people together from all the different communities, beyond all the seam lines – religious, secular, haredi, Jews and non Jews, old and young – they could all find something that would interest them here. So, yes, we leave this place with a heavy heart.”
After major renovation work, the Russians have promised, as part of the agreement signed with the government, that the Sergei Courtyard will be reopened for the public. However, no one knows what kind of activities will be held there and how much of it will be accessible to the residents of Jerusalem. The building itself will be renovated from inside, strictly overseen by the municipality’s preservation committee, and will open as a guest house for Russian Christian pilgrims – just as intended when it was built by the Romanov imperial family of the czar in the 19th century.