Nizhneolshansky forest is chopped

Despite the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation

“The Nizhneolshansky forest was planted by local residents after the Great Patriotic War in honor of the dead warriors who fought for our land,” says Galina Serikova, a resident of the village of Nizhny Olshanets of the Belgorod district.

- People come here to celebrate Victory Day and other memorable dates. And of course, we all just really loved to walk around the pine forest and swim in the reservoir, until the local authorities sold the forest to private traders who began to cut down trees and build cottages here. ”

The inhabitants of the Lower Olshanz are desperately defending their forest, the territory of which officials illegally transferred from one category of land to another, and then sold for the construction of houses. The defenders of the forest complained to the prosecutor’s office and filed lawsuits in court, arranged pickets and held rallies. The authorities, for their part, did not remain in debt - against the participants of the shares, the local press controlled by the authorities was mobilized, and Anastasius Baybikov even opened an administrative case to the organizer of one of the rallies - it allegedly exceeded the action limit by as long as five minutes.

In September 2012, the head of the Belgorod district administration Andrei Savchenko instructed to transfer a plot with a forest with an area of 39 hectares from the category of agricultural land into the category of lands of settlements. Six months later, this land was leased to a certain Steinvest LLC for 1 million 218 thousand rubles, and then, by order of the new head of the district, Yuri Galdun, a certain Avangard LLC was sold 10 thousand rubles per hundred square meters.

The defenders of the forest applied to the regional prosecutor's office, she filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Russia, which recognized the order of the Belgorod Region Administration "On a change in the category of land in the Belgorod district" illegal.

It seemed that the problem was solved, but it was not there. On March 11, 2015, officials of the administration of the Belgorod district organized a "public listening", trying to seduce the villagers by the fact that for them a car service, a car wash, a sports complex and a private kindergarten will be built in the forest.

Voting at the "hearings" was held, the results were not in favor of local authorities. But this did not stop the "developers." Then the defenders of the forest turned to the State Duma deputy Valery Zubov , he wrote a request to the Prosecutor General’s Office, and replied from the department that they would take all measures to comply with the law. Nevertheless, activists who conduct raids in the forest daily report - the cutting continues:

“Today, not far from the beach, we saw freshly sawed trees,” says Elena Sudina, a member of the initiative forest protection group. - Nearby stood a device for processing wood into chips. Apparently, they destroy evidence, hoping that no one will know about the cutting. We shot sawn trees and this device on the video and now we will transfer the video to the regional and general prosecutor's office. It turns out, despite the promise from the Prosecutor General’s Office, to control the situation, no one except us checks what is happening in the forest.