Cultural monuments and the right to picture

Blogger Yevgenya Morozova states that very often the guards prohibit to make pictures of the buildings having historical value.

She wrote on her Facebook page: “For example, the house of Baum on 68a Amangeldy Street is interesting not only because the famous Verny forester Eduard Baum lived there, but also because Pavel Zenkov was the author of the project for this house. The house itself is an excellent example of wooden architecture of individual residential buildings of the late 19th century. According to all guidebooks of Almaty this is a bright landmark of the city. Tourists are welcome to see what we have in the city - state the guidebooks. We arrived there drew out our cameras. And we almost got arrested by a man who guards this building. He told us about some kind of “convention number so-and-so ...”, that prohibits taking pictures of the UN buildings, and in the house of Baum now is some kind of the UN branch. That is acording to the guard.  At home, I decided to find out what document he was talking about that prohibits taking pictures of buildings and found none. But what i  found was a million of pictures and a schedule of excursions to the UN building, but in NYC, not here. One more recent case. The house of the merchant Golovizin, from where the guards of the nearby House of receptions tried to chase us away. "Private property! No pictures!" - the stupidest thing I ever heard about historical buildings. I could go on and on, but I will not. What a shame!"

 "Adil Soz" comments:

Article 20 of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan guarantees us freedom of speech and creativity, that means that it is allowed to take photographs freely - for onerself, as a memento, for own pleasure. Sure some restrictions exist. The  law is not allowing:

- photographing  prisons and pre-trial detention centers (except for  the permission of the administration);

- photographing convicts (except for the consent of the convicts );

- photographing in the courtroom (only by permisson of the presiding judge);

- photographing during the proceedings on administrative offenses cases (only by permisson of judge);

- photography of regime or protected objects that constitute state secrets (residence of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, military units, objects with state material reserves, objects of space infrastructure). State secrets include information on the deployment, appointment, degree of readiness or security of sensitive sites. Taking amateur and professional pictures and/or videos on the territories of state natural reserves, state national natural parks, state natural reserves, state regional natural parks allowed without any restrictions! Sub. 7 p. 5 of the order of the Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 555 dated September 1, 2010 “On Approval of the Rules for Visiting Specially Protected Natural Territories by Individuals”  provides the right to individuals to “conduct professional and amateur photo-video filming”. The Law "On Culture" and the order of the Minister of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Kazakhstan No. 21 of January 26, 2015 "On Approving the Rules for the Provision of Paid Activities for the Sale of Goods, Works, Services by State Libraries and State Museums and Reserve Museums and expenditure of  the money from the sale of goods, works, services” state that there is no prohibition on photo and video filming in museums and libraries. Paragraph 12 of Art. 24 of the Law "On Protection of Consumer Rights" stipulates: "It is forbidden to the seller (manufacturer, performer), except as provided for by the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, to restrict the rights of consumers regarding taking  photo and video". The official Internet resource of the city of Almaty https://www.almaty.gov.kz/mobile.php?page_id=1205&lang=1&page=12, answers the question about buildings that can be photographed  in Almaty: “You can take pictures of any building in our city, if it is not a secret object. To do so, there is no need to send a request to the city leaders. If you need to take a picture from the roof of a building, you can take permission from the owner. ”With regard to the distribution of the photographs in  media and social networks - you can publish everything that is not prohibited by law.