A Moscow city committee is offering 382,000 dollars to help thwart protests against unpopular urban planning policies

Moscow’s Architecture and Urban Planning Committee is soliciting bids for “informational-analytical support” at public hearings this year and next year. The bids start at 24.1 million rubles. In other words, Moscow City Hall is offering at least $382,000 to any enterprises that can help suppress protests against its unpopular architecture and urban planning policies.

Whoever wins the procurement contract is supposed to forecast the potential controversy of particular city projects, how these situations might develop, and make recommendations for “guiding ‘complicated’ public hearings, when necessary.” The city is accepting bids until July 7.

Moscow’s public hearings offer a forum to discuss projects like land use and development and land surveying, as well as the city’s General Plan and any new reforms. In the past, this has been a venue for public objections to Moscow’s renovation program, which involves the demolition of several thousand homes, especially Soviet-era five-story apartment buildings.