Sochi court dismisses prosecutors' claim on demolition of pump-room built in green zone

At the hearing of the case on the demolition of the monumental pump-room built in Sochi parkland, the Tsentralny District Court dismissed the prosecutor's suit.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on November 23, 2013, in Primorsky Park, opposite the Winter Theatre in Sochi, they held a solemn opening ceremony of the monumental pump-room. Its construction was accompanied by protests, held on June 23 and August 18, 2013. The protesters demanded from the Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov to stop the construction. On October 24, 2013, the Prosecutor's Office of the Tsentralny District filed a lawsuit against the city Mayor and two construction companies demanding to recover the territory to its original condition. The trial was scheduled for January 10.

Lyudmila Shestak, a Deputy of the Sochi City Assembly from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), said that the construction of the pump-room has violated not only the law, but also the rights of an unspecified group of persons to use public green areas.

The trial was also attended by about a dozen participants of rallies and pickets against the building the parkland up with the pump-room. "As I understand, the judge believes that you can everything you wish every where you want – on lawns, in parks and min-parks, in protected areas, in spite of the law and public opinion," Evgeny Zakharov, a member of the initiative group to protect common-use green areas, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.