Context

The military prosecutor's office is studying the circumstances of the transaction to transfer into ownership of the Novosibirsk region a land plot owned by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the supervisory agency intends to obtain explanations from former governor Vasily Yurchenko. Garrison prosecutor Oleg Kurtanov told Kommersant about this. The agreement was concluded in early February 2012 by the head of the military department, Anatoly Serdyukov, and the Novosibirsk governor, Vasily Yurchenko. It provided for the transfer by the Ministry of Defense into the ownership of the region of the land plot of the 17th military camp with an area of 6.4 hectares with the SKA stadium and a 50-meter swimming pool located on it. The regional authorities, for their part, committed themselves to repairing sports facilities and building new ones for the Ministry of Defense in the village of Yarkovo. As the military prosecutor's office explained, the regional authorities did not fulfill the terms of the agreement. The new sports complex, which was supposed to be put into operation at the end of 2013, was never completed. The former army stadium was not renovated either. As prosecutor Kurtanov noted, “the issue with the transfer of property is exclusively in the sphere of civil law relations.” The regional government considers the agreement on the transfer of land and real estate legal. As the head of the region's department of land and property relations, Roman Shilokhvostov, told TASS, the agreement assumed that the ministry refused the option with Yarkovo, and the site it chose in Shilovo is in federal ownership, and the region cannot conduct construction on it. The region asked to transfer the site into its ownership during construction, after which the Russian Ministry of Defense, according to Mr. Shilokhvostov, “took a break.” In addition, the official noted, the army sports facilities transferred to the region in 2012 were in disrepair; it was decided to demolish them and rebuild them. “The budget for 2016-2017 includes more than 200 million rubles for the construction of a swimming pool; the issue of reconstructing the stadium is still being discussed,” said Mr. Shilokhvostov. Alexander Balyan, the lawyer of ex-governor Vasily Yurchenko, also agrees that the issue with army property lies in the civil legal plane.

Konstantin Voronov, Valery Lavsky, Novosibirsk

The military were left without sports