23:57, 4 September 2025

Resident of Kabardino-Balkaria accused of fraud with lands of the Elbrus National Park

A plot of land in the Elbrus National Park was illegally transferred to the ownership of a resident of Kabardino-Balkaria based on a fake decree from the head of the village of Elbrus, the prosecution claims.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" reported, in March the police declared former deputy chairman of the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria Murat Efendiyev wanted. The investigation believes that Efendiyev may be involved in fraud with a 6 square kilometer plot of land in Elbrus; the damage is estimated at 31 million rubles. In May, the court sentenced the former head of the village of Elbrus, Khamzat Baydayev, to three years probation in a case of large-scale fraud with the land of the national park.

In 2022, residents of the Elbrus district were actively discussing deals to sell resort lands, when security forces conducted a series of searches in the municipality. Surveying and cadastral registration of land plots of the national park were stopped in the 1990s, and in fact, clarification of the boundaries began only in 2019. As a result, many land disputes arose: some plots were "torn out" from the protected area, some lands of the national park turned out to be lands of settlements, and some lands of settlements became the territory of the national park.

The case under the article on fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, provides for up to ten years of imprisonment) was transferred to the Elbrus District Court of Kabardino-Balkaria.

According to the prosecution, a resident of the republic illegally took possession of a land plot on the territory of the Azau glade in the Prielbrusye National Park. The investigation estimated the value of this asset at over 2.2 million rubles.

According to the prosecution, the man first registered the right of perpetual use of the plot, using a forged decree of the head of the village of Elbrus from 1999. In 2018, he re-registered the registered right and received this plot as his own, and transferred it to Interfax-Yug with reference to the prosecutor's office of the republic.

The disputed land plot has now been seized, and the defendant's car has also been seized. The department did not specify what preventive measure has been chosen for the defendant himself.

The Elbrus National Park was established in Kabardino-Balkaria in 1986 to preserve the natural complex and create conditions for the development of organized recreation, tourism and mountaineering. The territory of the national park runs along the high-mountain part of the Baksan Gorge and is formed by the mid-mountain and high-mountain ridges of the Greater Caucasus.

Elbrus is a winter resort that is popular among fans of alpine skiing, freeriding, snowboarding and other extreme sports. The winter resort season in Elbrus region lasts from the end of December to the end of March, according to the Caucasian Knot’s reference about the resort. The Caucasian Knot also prepared a reference Elbrus - the patriarch of the Caucasus Mountains.

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Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/415146