03:42, 21 February 2014

Simonov: builders of Olympic venues have about 40 million roubles of unpaid wages

Builders during lunch break. Sochi, ‘Laura’ Biathlon Complex, November 21, 2013. Photo by Tatiana Ukolova for the ‘Caucasian Knot’.

700 people, who worked at the construction of Olympic facilities, still have not received their wages in the amount of some 35-40 million roubles. The debtors are about 20 subcontractors who had taken on the responsibility for the construction of Olympic venues, the Sochi-based reception office of the network "Migration and Law" of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" reports.

Russian state authorities hurried to escape most of the problems. One of the reasons is that all the cases on the unpaid wages were transferred to the prosecutor's office, which has no powers to conduct operational and search actions aimed to find the missing employers and bring them to justice – this is stated in the press release of the "Migration and Law" received by the "Caucasian Knot" on February 21.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) and the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF), who have enough powers, do nothing. Given this, workers remain unpaid and have no legal recourse, because they cannot find the respondents, says the above release, signed by Semyon Simonov, the network coordinator.