It’s a scene reminiscent of an armed standoff or the last days of a condemned man. But the horde of rubberneckers, satellite TV vans and dishevelled hacks stumbling through the long grass at 19 Bogucharskaya Street have a different focus: a broken-down wooden shack.
This simple house and its inhabitants in Butovo, on the southern outskirts of Moscow, have become a cause celebre throughout Russia. The Prokofyev family who live inside it are the talisman of local residents struggling to protect their homes from demolition by the city’s government.
”My great-grandparents were given this land by the state in 1936” says Mikhail Prokofyev (19) waving a hand across the carefully tended vegetable patch and clipped lawn that lies beyond the barricade at the front gate. ”Now they want to stick us in a one-room apartment without a single document to say we own it.”
Last week neighbours joined forces with the Prokofyevs to fend off an attack from court bailiffs and special-forces police sent to evict them. Their possessions were removed as camouflaged men charge into the house but the family managed to stay put and now await a second assault.
On Monday, the campaigning anti-corruption duma deputy Alexander Lebedev stepped into the fray, saying he had formally rented a room in another of the threatened homes, meaning it was protected by his MP’s immunity.
The Prokofyevs’ struggle is being seen as a new hotspot in the people’s fight for justice against a government yet to shed its army of bribe-hungry bureaucrats.
In the run-up to the G8 summit in St Petersburg, where President Vladimir Putin is keen to deflect foreign criticism of his alleged backsliding on civil rights, state-run TV channels have run hard on the story as an example of the common man taking on the state.
Supporters of the Prokofyevs have pitched tents in their garden and two prominent members of the Public Chamber, a Kremlin-sponsored body set up to ape civil society, slept overnight at the camp. Yet besides being an opportunity for Putin to show off his democratic side, this dispute is a real scrap between poor people and politics and big business.
Everyone on Bogucharskaya Street wears a white ribbon, the symbol sported by allies of Oleg Shcherbinsky, the driver wrongly convicted of causing a governor’s speeding car to crash. Shcherbinsky was released from prison in March after a public outcry.
The Prokofyevs and their neighbours have been backed by a growing number of residents’ groups trying to fight off similar construction projects. Their house is plastered with icons, supportive newspaper articles and photographs of the bailiff’s military-style attack on their property. One slogan reads: ”There are laws in the Russian Federation. Respect them!”
The family’s campaign for justice has thrown in to sharp relief the growing disparity between rich and poor that academics warned last year could provoke social unrest.
As Moscow booms on the back of a growing Russian economy, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov is pushing huge new construction projects on the city outskirts. High oil prices mean cash is pouring into state coffers and wages are rising, prompting demand for new stores and housing. Shopping malls are mushrooming across the city while new skyscrapers tower over entire neighbourhoods.
According to a survey published at the weekend by New York-based Mercer Human Resource Consulting, Moscow is the most expensive city in the world to live in, with the average price for real estate creeping close to $3 600 per square metre.
But wealth rarely trickles down to the lowest tier of society, where benefits and pensions remain pitifully low and the weak are often trampled by those with more cash or better connections.
A swath of new high-rise blocks reached this edge of Butovo two years ago, and casts its shadow across Bogucharskaya Street, a string of single-storey wooden homes in a leafy suburb.
Mayor Luzhkov angered residents by saying, ”We will not put up with greediness” in response to their pleas for mercy. On Monday, he struck a conciliatory tone in a newspaper interview, suggesting each family would be negotiated with separately.
However, the evidence so far suggests there is little room for manoeuvre. In agreement with the city government, a private construction company plans to build more high-rise blocks on the spot. Residents have been offered alternative apartment blocks — often smaller than their existing homes — but no compensation, because a court refused their right under the land code to receive documentary evidence of ownership.
When their families were resettled to the area from the centre of Moscow in the 1930s, the Butovo residents were granted permanent leave to live and build on the site but no papers. Normally compensation in desirable areas is up to $100 000 per 100 square metres.
Mikhail Prokofyev’ grandmother, Lyubov Gordeeva, said her daughter and grandson were ordered to move from their five-room home with two entrances and a large garden to a one-room apartment on a nearby street. ”The bailiffs just seized their belongings, chucked them in the corridor outside and said, ‘there you go’,” she said.
Next door at number 17, the Popov family are in fighting mood. ”Hands off! Our home is our castle. We’ll die before leaving!”, says a sign by the gate.
”There’s no doubt the judges are in the city government’s pocketa” says Roman Popov (21) whose grandmother Valentina had a minor stroke after bailiffs raided the Prokofyevs’ house. ”The court took just 30 seconds to ignore our pleas and give the order to evict us.”
Moscow officials have consistently been accused of bribing judges and taking kickbacks from construction companies that get tenders.
”We’re normal people here — look, a television, a sofa, a cooker,” says Roman’s mother, Tatyana.
”We have enough to get by here, we’re not greedy. So Luzhkov wants to talk? He can come round any time. All we want is some respect.”
Igor Plotnikov, a lawyer for the family, says he will pursue their fight to the supreme court if necessary. ”Maybe there, at least, we’ll see some adherence to Russian law,” he said.
Land grab
- According to the 10th World Wealth report published this week, Russia is one of four countries in the world with the fastest growth of ”high net-worth individuals” in 2005. It has 103 000 millionaires.
- In ten years the area of new housing being built in Moscow every year has risen 60%. The average price per square metre of residential land is $3 200, 40% more than Berlin.
- Moscow has 33 dollar billionaires, more than New York or London. The only billionaire woman is Yelena Baturina, a construction company boss whose husband is the city’s mayor.
- Russia’s 100 richest people have a combined wealth equal to one quarter of its GDP.
- House prices in Moscow have approximately doubled in the last six months. An Izvestia investigation this month found at least 10% of the price of every new apartment went to corrupt officials. – Guardian Unlimited Â