Volgograd residents demand to stop urban development on Volga River bank

At a rally against the urban development, residents of Volgograd have claimed that the construction of a high-rise residential complex on the Volga River bank threatens the safety of nearby houses and violates environmental standards. The activists addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin and Alexander Bastrykin, the chairman of the Russian Investigating Committee, with the demand to bring to responsibility the officials who approved the urban development in the region.

A three-hour rally against the construction of multi-storey buildings in the water protection zone on the Volga River bank was held in the “Rus” Park in the Dzerzhinsky District of Volgograd. At least thirty activists gathered at the rally. In their hands, they were holding posters. The participants of the rally recorded a collective appeal to the President of Russia and the chair of the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF).

Recreational area of the Volga River bank is being covered with concrete instead of being developed for recreation

“Residents of Volgograd have gathered here to express their dissatisfaction with the activities of local officials on the urban development of the Volga River bank. We express our disagreement and our opinion that the recreational area of the Volga River bank is being covered with concrete instead of being developed for recreation. We want the Volgograd authorities to pay their close attention to the Volga River water protection zone. We also demand that the three previously cancelled criminal cases against officials to be developed into an actual criminal case,” claimed Ivan Ivanov, a member of the initiative group and human rights defender.

In their appeal, the activists request ICRF’s chair Alexander Bastrykin “to transfer the case on illegal construction of the “Volga Coast” residential complex on the embankment of the Voroshilovsky District in Volgograd to the chief investigative body in Moscow.” Since, as Natalia Kuzmina, the second speaker at the rally, claimed, all the Volgograd residents’ appeals to the General Prosecutor’s Office “were being sent down to the administration of the Volgograd Region.”

“Please open at least one beach in Volgograd. It’s time to focus on peaceful issues, not other things,” stated the third speaker (who did not introduce himself).

“We are holding our rally to protect the Volga River bank in Volgograd. The action has been agreed upon with the authorities. We want comfortable and safe beaches, green areas, and parks on the banks of the Volga River. We do not want elite residential complexes in the Volga River water protection zone. Fishermen and vacationers can be fined 5000 roubles for parking their cars closer than 150 metres from the river. And here, an entire residential complex (will appear), and it turns out that it is allegedly more harmless than cars. It’s nonsense,” Ivan Ivanov told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

“There is only one idea here: officials want to turn the Volga River bank into concrete and elite residential complexes,” Ivan Ivanov noted.

Alexei Borisov, a participant in the rally, has complained that during the active phase of embankment development, residents of the microdistrict began to notice that groundwaters are being accumulated and building’s foundations are sinking in the area.

“What do we see here? Developers are violating the Water Code of the Russian Federation and construction regulations. We do not see that they somehow collect drainage water there. All this flows into the Volga River," Alexei Borisov said.

Another participant of the rally, who preferred to remain anonymous, reminded the journalist that no one still found the memorial plaque about the deaths in this place of fighters of the 92nd Brigade of the 62nd Army, who were defending Stalingrad. Earlier, the mentioned memorial plaque hang on the wall of the administrative building of the cargo port. “The fate of the memorial plaque is unknown. Incidentally, it had a protective significance. There are rumours that the memorial plaque has been placed on the elevator building. But in what way is the elevator connected with it?” the activist has expressed his indignation.

Engineer Arkady Kukharev, who lives in the Voroshilovsky District in Volgograd, has reported that he had studied the Volga River embankment development project. The engineer has noted that the project for the construction of the “Volga Coast” residential complex had been approved by the Volgograd City Mayoralty. The “Volga Coast” Stock Company is a specialized developer in the project. The “Volga Coast” residential complex will include fourteen (according to other sources, nineteen) multi-storey apartment buildings. According to the engineer’s information, the residential buildings will be constructed on the coastline along the Volga River from Kalinina Street to Irkutskaya Street, on the site of the abandoned cargo port.

“The developer calls his residential complex a resort area. The area will be closed, inaccessible to other city residents. All these high-rise buildings are being built on a dangerous loose coastal slope. We have already had landslides,” stated engineer Arkady Kukharev.

In the case of the construction of the “Volga Coast” residential complex, the rights of citizens to a favourable and safe living environment, which are enshrined in both the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the Federal Laws “On Environmental Protection” and “On the Sanitary and Epidemiological Welfare of the Population”, may be violated, believes lawyer Sergey Ivaschenko. He has emphasized that the changes made to the Water Code of the Russian Federation “significantly reduced the water protection zone in large cities of the country, and now developers have the right to build residential complexes almost at the edge of the shore.”

“The examination, I repeat, is very questionable. The buildings located in the immediate vicinity of the construction in question are already experiencing problems with groundwaters,” lawyer Sergey Ivaschenko emphasizes.

Sergey Ivaschenko has stated that Paragraph 4 of Article 65 “Water Protection Zones and Coastal Protective Strips” of the Water Code of the Russian Federation suggests a water protection zone width of 200 metres for a river like Volga.

This was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 15, 2025 at 05:49 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.