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Russian authorities raze house in disputed Moskva River village

© RIA Novosti . Georgiy Kurolesin / Go to the mediabankMoskva River village
Moskva River village  - Sputnik International
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It was the dead of night, and all was quiet in the rural settlement on the Moskva River, but the residents were still on guard to keep the surrounding city out of their small piece of paradise.

It was the dead of night, and all was quiet in the rural settlement on the Moskva River, but the residents were still on guard to keep the surrounding city out of their small piece of paradise.

The city says the people have built homes on the land illegally, but the residents argue they were granted the land during the Soviet era and the courts should recognize their right to live there.

As they have done for many nights, on Wednesday they blocked the entrance to the Rechnik settlement, a rare slice of country life within the confines of the Russian capital, but on Thursday morning the bailiffs came with a court demolition order.

The barricaders were arrested and taken away, and the demolition machines moved in.

"At four o'clock in the morning there came police, an excavator, and the residents who were guarding the village were arrested, and one house was demolished," a villager told RIA Novosti.

A city police spokeswoman said officers were only working on the boundary of the settlement, and only bailiffs had gone on to its territory to carry out the court-ordered demolition.

Zhanna Ozhimina said 16 people had been detained.

The arrests and demolition marked another small battle in a long-running war between the residents and the city authorities over the legality of the homes built on the land of a specially protected city park.

Environmental watchdog Rosprirodnadzor first stirred up the controversy in 2006 with an investigation into some 400 residences. Most of the buildings, which are situated on land belonging to a federal canal agency, have been legalized, but the owners of a few dozen dwellings on the city land said they were simply forgotten.

A number of court decisions have been issued on the demolition of the buildings, ruling that capital structures are prohibited from being built on the land, in Krylatskoye in western Moscow.

Two years ago, utility services were halted to the settlement, but generators were brought in to provide electricity. Nonetheless, conditions in Rechnik are tough, and Novaya Gazeta newspaper reports that nine people have died since the blockade began.

The Moscow city administration has decreed that a 20-hectare town park will be created on the land, but residents suspect that the prime real estate will be sold to developers to create a luxury residential compound.

MOSCOW, January 21 (RIA Novosti)

 

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