…Well it feels a bit like that at the moment. Next door to our apartment block is an old hotel called ‘Hotel Absheron’. It is the epitome of Soviet style construction, boxy and concrete. Just before Christmas the hotel was cordoned off and they began to demolish it, we believe a new hotel will be built in it’s place.
I don’t know about you, but my idea of demolition consists of a series of controlled explosions which reduces the building to a dusty heap of rubble on the floor. Instead they have decided to use big cranes to lift JCB diggers onto the roof which are slowly demolishing it floor by floor. As a result our apartment block periodically shakes when they knock a little bit too much down at once! The main entrance to our building has been moved to the far side and pedestrian access limited at the front of the building due to the danger of falling debris, mainly concrete. Parking is also no longer allowed there because rumour has it some debris fell from the top of the hotel onto the cars below which resulted in broken windscreens and dented paint work!
The demolition work is being carried out 24 hours a day and due to be finished by April 2009. Thankfully our apartment is on the far side of the block so we are not too affected by the noise. We do see the occasional dust cloud passing the window, it’s safe to say we won’t be opening the windows for a while.
No picture as yet but i’m interested to see what will be built there too.
The good thing is that the soviet style building will be gone soon, hopefully to be replaced by a pretty new building (more noise). Do they have a picture of the new hotel on the construction wall?