Some 50 Sochi residents campaign against commercial development of the park

Yesterday, on April 14, in the park opposite the marine station in Sochi, about 50 local residents held a rally against the build-up by traders of the resort land occupied by parks, mini-parks and green areas for general use.

The activists split into groups and collected signatures against the authorities' actions of delivering the park areas of the resort city for commercial development. Within five hours they collected about one thousand signatures to the statement against development of the park zones, namely: in front of the marine station, Gorky Street, and Parks "Yuzhnye Kultury" and "Dendrary".

The action was attended by Stanislav Udalov, an entrepreneur and director of the LLC "Rusichi", who tried to explain the crowd that his company has nothing to do with the diggings underway in the park, and is not going to build it up with commercial facilities. "Fountains and entertainments for children will be here," he stressed.

However, most of the protesters expressed their distrust to the businessman. Thus, Irina Ivanova, a resident of Sochi, said that "modern entrepreneurs will never invest into something that will not bring them profit."

They put many other questions to Udalov; however, his answers did not satisfy them. "We'll not allow you erecting cafes and fountains in the park," said Nina Rogachova, assistant of the deputy Lyudmila Shestak.