The Valaam Monastery evicts citizens from the premises of the "Winter Hotel" through the court.

The Valaam Monastery is evicting residents from the building of the Winter Hotel. The building will house a cultural and educational center. The state is ready to finance the creation of the center, but is not ready to provide the evicted citizens with alternative living space.

On June 30, 2015, it became known that by the decision of the Sortavala city court in March 2015, three residents of Valaam were deprived of their property rights and discharged from the premises of the Winter Hotel.

The initiator of the trial was LLC SENT (Real Estate and Territory Exploitation Service), a management company established by the Valaam Stauropegial Monastery and managing the monastery's real estate. SENT demanded to evict the guide I.A. Smirnova, her ex-husband historian O.A. Yarovoy, daughter Ya.Yu. Yurna and granddaughter A.E. Merkushev.

"Winter Hotel" is one of two apartment buildings on the island. The building was needed by the monastery to create the cultural and educational center "Valaam" in it. This project is financed by the government in 2015 - in accordance with the Federal program "Strengthening the unity of the Russian nation and the ethno-cultural development of the peoples of Russia (2014 - 2020)".

The court ruled that “according to reliable, but not officially confirmed data”, the evicted citizens - O. A. Yarovaya, Ya. Yu. Yurna, A. E. Merkusheva - work and have housing on the mainland, and therefore “have lost the right to use the premises under a social contract. Only I.A. managed to save the right to stay in the Winter Hotel. Smirnova.

According to Open Russia, before the restoration of the monastery, more than a thousand people lived on Valaam, at present - less than two hundred. Their life largely depends on the monastery, because "monastic economy (as stated in one of the reports of the Helsinki Group) acts as a monopolist in all aspects of life - village supplies, employment, access to the natural resources of the island, and so on ...".

On September 1, 2015, it became known that the inhabitants of the island, being evicted from their homes, addressed an open letter to Patriarch Kirill. They report that the decision to resettle, contrary to the law, has not been agreed with the evicted themselves, many of whom do not want to move to the mainland, but want to stay on the island, where many apartments have been vacated after the relocation of part of the population.

“We ask you to convince the leadership of the monastery subordinate to you to listen to the opinion of local residents so that this situation does not turn into a tragedy and the issue is resolved taking into account our wishes and interests, in compliance with the laws of the Russian Federation and moral principles,” the letter says .

Sources

• Valaam: You Were Not Prayed Here // Open Russia. 2015. June 30.
• The inhabitants of Valaam ask the patriarch to stop the arbitrariness on the part of the monastery // ProvinceDaily. 2015. September 1.