Square meter of hunger

The first of the actions of deceived co-investors scheduled for autumn has begun

The autumn of this year, it seems, will remind officials of 2005 not only with the long Indian summer, but also with protests of deceived participants in shared-equity construction. Having never received real help from the authorities in solving their problems and tired of listening to encouraging declarations, the deceived co-investors again flocked to the streets and to the Government House. Moreover, this time the actions can be not only massive, but also extended over time. Yesterday, after a short rally on Gorbaty Bridge, the shareholders of one of the most problematic companies - the limited partnership "Social Initiative" - ​​who were left without apartments and money, announced the start of an indefinite hunger strike.

In order not to provoke a forceful dispersal of the action, those affected by the Social Initiative from the White House went to Sadovo-Sukharevskaya Square, where one of the long-term construction projects of this company is located. It was there that they were going to starve. The day before, the coordination council sent to the government, as the authors put it, “it is no longer possible to determine what the appeal is.” It demands that the authorities “immediately intervene in the situation under the CT “Social Initiative””, as well as “recognize the state’s responsibility for the current situation.” Unhurried investigative actions against the former leaders of the campaign, as well as the threat of its bankruptcy, frighten citizens who once invested money in the construction projects of the Social Initiative and have still not given up the hope of receiving apartments rather than cash compensation, and even then in a few years.

“The situation is completely unclear,” Victoria Penkova, a board member of the coordinating council of affected co-investors, told Vremya Novostey. - Either the company is declared bankrupt or it is not. In addition, the company’s management has changed, and they refuse to acknowledge the responsibilities of the previous management to the deceived co-investors.” In their appeal to the authorities, shareholders remind that no work has been carried out on construction sites for a year now, “frozen construction sites are deteriorating, and the theft of assets continues.” “The hunger strike will continue until concrete steps are taken by the government to solve our problems,” another member of the board of the coordinating council, Sergei Korolev, assured Vremya Novostey.

However, far from the Government House, shareholders were not allowed to hold a full-fledged protest. Several members of the support group not far from the facility, on Tsvetnoy Boulevard, were detained by police officers, and the rest were sent to the metro. However, in one of the premises of the building unfinished by the Social Initiative, an action nevertheless began - several dozen hungry people were seated on trestle beds. Soon, the prosecutor of the Meshchanskaya Interdistrict Prosecutor's Office of Moscow, Alexander Rybak, arrived at Sadovaya-Sukharevskaya. “I arrived here in connection with reports of a forceful seizure of a facility under construction, but I see that an unauthorized rally is taking place,” is how he explained his appearance. After listening to reproaches against the Social Initiative in a construction shed, the prosecutor left. As Ms. Penkova told a Vremya Novostey correspondent, the appearance of the guardian of the law did not in any way affect the hunger strikers’ intention to attract the attention of higher authorities.

We can say with a high degree of confidence that this is only the first of those actions that will remind Muscovites this fall of the “side effects” of the construction boom. The other day, another initiative group of co-investors, who did not receive apartments from Masterok LLC, asked First Deputy Mayor of Moscow Vladimir Resin to “take control of the situation.” These shareholders also call the situation with the Masterka objects “critical.” Unlike the “victims” of the “Social Initiative”, who were waiting for an answer from the investigation and the courts, the citizens who financed “Masterok” had every reason to hope for a better life, since they were among those who were officially recognized as victims by the Moscow government. The sites where their houses were never completed were promised to be handed over to more conscientious investors. However, according to shareholders, it was not possible to move into the new apartments any closer. In their appeal to Mr. Resin, they complain that the creation of a special city commission to solve the problems of the affected co-investors did not improve the situation. Moreover, “the actions of its chairman Kosovan A.D. brought the situation to a dead end and even worsened it compared to what it was a year ago, before the start of his work.” “For three years we have been fighting the fraud of Masterok LLC and now we find ourselves in the trap of an official biased by Masterok LLC,” the appeal says. The multi-page message to the leaders of the capital’s construction complex ends with a statement about the upcoming rally “due to the hopelessness of the current situation.” The rally will take place on October 11.

The autumn aggravation even affected the Association for Assistance to Affected Investors - the only public association of shareholders that preferred to solve their problem through negotiations. The head of the association, Anton Belyakov, was even criticized by his “colleagues in misfortune” for “opportunism” and attempts to earn political capital from the grief of thousands of people. But this association of shareholders seems to be moving from correspondence with officials, meetings with representatives of large construction companies and organizing round tables in the State Duma to street fighting. And not only on a Moscow scale. The result of the recent congress of this association, which brought together dissatisfied shareholders from Moscow, the Moscow region, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and other regions, was a statement about the need to hold a whole series of protests. The first all-Russian wave of rallies of deceived co-investors was promised to the authorities in early October. “We are still very far from fully understanding the scale of the crisis,” say members of the assistance to affected investors.

Irina BELASHEVA