Sochi resident dissatisfied with resettling to Adler commits suicide

At night on August 10, in Sochi, in Titov Street, Alexei Velkov, a local resident, committed suicide. The man would not obey to authorities' decision to move from his permanent residence to the village of Vesyoloe-Psou (near Adler), his relatives said.

Alexei Velkov was born in 1961 and lived all his life in the barrack at No. 11 Titov Street. Last year, residents of Titov Street (Zavokzalny District) learnt that their houses would be demolished because of the construction of an Olympic object – a parallel highway, Alexei Velkov's relatives assert.

"My 50-year-old son Alexei Velkov was provided by decision of the court a one-room apartment jointly with the 30-year-old daughter in the village of Vesyoloe-Psou at No. 27 Khulyakov Street. The son and daughter have bad relationships; their living together is impossible. A request to provide them with separate housing was rejected by the authorities. Last September, my son, while expressing protest against his eviction from his home, in the presence of court marshals, poured gasoline over himself. Marshals covered him with foam, stripped him naked and handcuffed to a fence. Then, they called the police. My son suffered a disgrace. He was forcibly taken to Adler," said his mother Lydia Volozhdanina.

According to Igor Platonov, the chairman of the Territorial Self-Ruling Body "Zavokzalny" the residents of the barrack in Titov Street held protests. "The residents of the street expressed their protest by pickets and rallies. The disagreed to being moved 50 kilometres away from their habitual place of residence, to the border with Abkhazia, the village of Vesyoloe-Psou," said Igor Platonov.

Following the court rulings, court marshals evicted all the residents of the barrack; over a hundred people lost their jobs because of resettling to Psou, said Alla Sklyarova, a former resident of the house in Titov Street.

Alexei Velkov worked in the centre of Sochi, near his former residence, said his mother. The woman claims that her son had suffered greatly from his "Olympic resettlement". "On August 9 in the evening my son came to me; he sat silently, his head in his hands. Then, he said: 'Goodbye, Mom,' and walked away. And at night I was awakened by a knock at the door; people told me that my son had hanged himself on the site of the ruined house, where we had lived all our life," said Lydia Volozhdanina.