Translated material
Olympic village
A separate settlement will be built for residents of the resettlement zone in Sochi
Yesterday, the president of the Olimpstroy state corporation, Viktor Kolodyazhny, met at the Sochi-2014 information center with representatives of the resort public. During the meeting, it was confirmed that the most painful problem of the Olympic construction unfolding in Sochi remains the seizure of land for the facilities of the 2014 Winter Games and the resettlement of people living on these lands. As a result, the authorities promise to build a new settlement for residents of the Olympic resettlement zone - the village of Nekrasovskoye.The questions addressed to Mr. Kolodyazhny were related, in particular, to the situation in the Adler district of Sochi, in the Lower Imeretinsk lowland. An Olympic Park will be built here, on the territory of which there will be five sports arenas for competitions in hockey, figure skating, speed skating and curling, as well as a stadium with 40 thousand seats for holding the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, an Olympic village and a press conference. center.
The President of the Olimpstroy Group of Companies confirmed the information first announced the day before by the Vice-Governor of the Krasnodar Territory on the preparation of Sochi for the Olympics, Vasily Nadiradze, that the authorities of the region and the city managed to extinguish the conflict that erupted in the Lower Imeretinsk lowland at the end of last week. According to Messrs. Nadiradze and Kolodyazhny, the compromise solution satisfies both sides.
As the Vremya Novostei newspaper has already reported , the main reason for the conflict between the population of the Lower Imeretinsk Lowland and the organizers of the Games was the lack of reliable information from people during the year about how many households will be demolished, what compensation they will receive and where they will be resettled. Throughout the year that has passed since Sochi’s victory in the fight for the right to host the 2014 Olympics, residents of the lowlands have been told one thing or another. Moreover, the words of some officials contradicted the assurances of others. As a result, people, many of whom are members of the Old Believers community that settled here more than a hundred years ago, decided not to move anywhere at all and to resist the actions of the authorities in all possible ways.
Last week, this resistance almost turned into a real battle: land surveyors, who were tasked with measuring the territories falling under the Olympic construction, and the police officers and bailiffs accompanying them were not allowed to enter the measurement site by a crowd of local residents. They were armed with sticks, stones and bottles of gasoline. Three of those who resisted the authorities were detained. The Adler Magistrate Court sentenced two to 12 days of arrest, and the third, the leader of the Old Believers community Dmitry Drofichev, to 15 days. But last night Dmitry Drofichev was already expected at home: the period of his arrest was reduced to five days.
Vice-Governor of Kuban Vasily Nadiradze and President of Olympstroy Viktor Kolodyazhny claim that on July 26 it was decided to build a new village of Nekrasovskoye for Old Believers and other people whose houses will be demolished. Moreover, it will be built on 66 hectares of land that have been released in the eastern part of the Lower Imereti Lowland. To do this, it was necessary to move the construction of a complex of high-class hotels on this site to another location. In fact, the authorities returned to the idea of building a new village (or village) for displaced people, voiced by Viktor Kolodyazhny at the beginning of the year, when he was still the mayor of Sochi. Then officials forgot this idea, because there were no free places left in the Lower Imereti Lowland: all the land went either for the Olympic Park or for investor projects.
According to the organizers of the Olympic Games in Sochi, a so-called resettlement fund has been formed in the city, which includes 66 hectares of land in the Lower Imeretinsk lowland, several land plots in other areas and a 40-apartment building in the center of the resort, already built with municipal money. Now people who will have to move because of the Olympics have a choice. Apartments in the center will be offered to those who live in the Lower Imeretinsk lowland in dormitories of bankrupt state farms, and land plots will be offered to homeowners.
Mr. Nadiradze spoke about the prospects for the village of Nekrasovskoye without sparing color: it will be a cultural and historical center with a museum and a church. Now the future residents of the village, according to the vice-governor, choose what their houses will be like - logs or from modern building materials. The entire engineering infrastructure of the village will be equipped with budget funds, and the households themselves will be built with money that each family will receive as compensation for housing that will be demolished.
The Old Believers themselves and other residents of the Lower Imereti Lowland, as community member Konstantin Ikonnikov told Vremya Novostei, do not experience euphoria from the authorities’ new proposal. People's anxiety will not disappear until they know exactly how much compensation each family will receive for the housing they have now. After all, it is possible, as Mr. Ikonnikov suggests, that these amounts will not be enough to build new houses.
Not everything is yet clear regarding the inclusion of a 40-apartment building in the resettlement fund, which was unexpected for Sochi residents: everyone in the city knows that this house in the center was built, as local authorities have repeatedly stated, to be occupied by war and labor veterans in need of improved living conditions.
Yes, and with 66 hectares of land in the Lower Imeretinskaya lowland, suddenly cleared for the future village of Nekrasovskoye, apparently, problems will also arise. In the process of designing the Olympic Park, ecologists secured the allocation of 300 hectares for the creation of a protected ornithological area. The Lower Imereti Lowland is a stopping place for migratory birds. During seasonal migrations, birds land here in tens of thousands to rest and refresh themselves. But the other day, as Vladimir Ostapuk, chairman of the Sochi City Environmental Council, told reporters, it turned out that the territory of this ornithological reserve was reduced to 100 hectares in the development plans. This area, environmentalists are sure, is not enough: there will not be enough space for all the birds, and they will begin to look for other open spaces, and since everything in the area will be built up, the only suitable area for birds will be the airfield of the Sochi International Airport. It is clear that in this case his work will be paralyzed. Something similar already happened in 1982, when the area was literally covered with hordes of migrating birds and there was not enough room for them all in the Lower Imeretinsk Lowland.
According to environmentalists, the hectares allocated for the protected ornithological territory are now given over to the construction of a hotel complex, which was supposed to be built where the village of Nekrasovskoye is now planned for Old Believers and other settlers.