Translated material
Bash to bash
Sochi residents, whose plots and houses are being confiscated for the needs of the Olympics, are demanding an exchange in kind
The results of a survey of the population of the Lower Imeretinsk Lowland conducted by activists of the public movement “Union of Imeretinsk Residents” have been published in Sochi. The purpose of the survey is to find out what people want to receive in return for the land and houses seized from them by the state for the construction of facilities for the 2014 Winter Olympics on this site. The overwhelming majority of respondents (95%) would prefer not to change anything at all in their lives and would be satisfied with another solution to the problem: people remain where they live, and the construction of Olympic facilities is postponed.However, the same 95% of respondents, realizing that the ideal scenario for them is no longer possible, and that Olympic facilities will be built where planned, do not want to take any monetary compensation for their plots and real estate. They say that the most fair solution to the problem would be an exchange in kind. That is, as the Imeretians believe, the authorities are obliged to provide each family with houses and plots of equal value to those seized. Moreover, new houses and plots, lowland residents believe, should correspond to the old ones not only in area and quality of the fertile soil layer, but also in their distance from the sea. People especially insist on the last requirement, because Imeretians live mainly on income from renting out rooms to vacationers - the closer the house is to the sea, the higher this income is, accordingly.
Imereti residents, whose houses ended up on land that attracted the attention of the organizers of the 2014 Olympics, were divided into three groups. As the survey once again confirmed, the overwhelming majority agree to move, but not just anywhere, but to completely equivalent areas within the same Lower Imeretinsk lowland. The remaining 5% are those who stubbornly do not agree to anything and declare their readiness to fight for the right to remain in place until the end, threatening armed resistance. And also those who live in shacks and are looking forward to at least some kind of monetary compensation for the hundred square meters they own in order to leave Sochi to where they can buy a good house for the money they earn. By the way, a considerable part of the Imeretians are members of the Old Believers community, but almost all of them were among the 95% who spoke out for natural exchange - house for house, plot for plot.
In the Lower Imeretinsk Lowland, on the territory where construction of ice palaces, a stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games, a press center and an Olympic village should begin in 2009, is located, according to the Krasnodar regional department for the implementation of powers in preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games , a total of 292 land plots now owned by citizens and legal entities. More than 500 people live in these areas.
Deputy Prime Minister of the federal government Dmitry Kozak, who is responsible for preparing Sochi for the Olympics, stated that the process of purchasing land necessary for the construction of Olympic facilities will begin on November 1, 2008. But to date, not a single Imeretian has even received an assessment sheet. People still don’t know how much their plots and houses are valued at. According to the Krasnodar Regional Olympic Department, 19 independent appraiser companies working in Sochi since August have already assessed 155 sites, and the results of this assessment are now being examined by Rosimushchestvo. It is still unknown what numbers appear in the documents. But the head of the Krasnodar Regional Olympic Department, Vitaly Ponomarev, in an interview he recently gave to Sochi journalists, said that the price of one hundred square meters of land in the Lower Imeretinsk Lowland was determined to range from 50 to 90 thousand dollars.
According to activists of the Union of Imeretinsk Residents, in August appraisers said that the cost of land taken for Olympic construction would exceed $100 thousand per hundred square meters. “Now the price of land and real estate in Sochi is falling,” explains the situation in the Krasnodar Regional Olympic Department. It is clear that such comments do not reassure the Imeretians. People are sure that the process of buying land from them is being deliberately delayed: the later, the cheaper. This, say activists of the Union of Imeretinsk Residents, is what makes people demand from the authorities not money, but an equivalent exchange. The second reason for such demands is that people are offered to sell the fertile plots they have improved, and in return purchase from the state hundreds of acres of unkempt virgin land. Moreover, virgin plots will be sold at the same market value of Sochi land.
Is it possible to satisfy the demand of the majority of Imeretians and, without paying compensation, simply resettle people into new, specially built houses for each family with the same land plots as the ones they lost? Vasily Nadiradze, Deputy Governor of the Krasnodar Territory for the preparation of Sochi for the Olympics, said back in the summer that a new settlement would be built in the Imereti Lowland for displaced people. It is assumed that this will be an exemplary settlement with modern infrastructure, with a temple and a museum. In general, the village should be such that it would not be a shame to show it to the guests of the Olympics. But the construction of houses in the village will be carried out with money received by each specific family for the land and real estate seized from them. That is, first people must take money from the state, and then use this money to start building a new house.
The deputy head of the Krasnodar Regional Olympic Department, Larisa Zavedeeva, recently reported another piece of news: housing for resettled Imeretians in the form of individual housing construction projects and townhouses will begin to be built after the legislative formalization of this decision. Registration could happen as early as this year. Further, according to Ms. Zavedeeva, housing construction will be carried out with public funds. According to the Union of Imeretinsk Residents, the authorities replayed their original plans and decided to first build houses and then sell them to resettlers. Now the regional Olympic department persistently invites Imeretians to its reception office, which works there, in the lowland, so that they “formulate their wishes, what they would like to receive.”
In short, the problem of freeing up land needed for the construction of Olympic facilities in Sochi is still far from being resolved. Moreover, in recent days it suddenly became clear that other areas in the areas of the Lower Imeretinsk Lowland that were not previously designated on the Olympic plans would be seized for Olympic construction. Recently, residents of Khadyzhenskaya Street experienced a shock: they received envelopes with orders from Kuban Governor Alexander Tkachev to confiscate their land plots and houses in order to place Olympic facilities on this territory. People began to find out what exactly would be built on their land. It turned out that there would be a road and parking lots here.