Protests against land development in the village of Nogir have attracted the attention of security forces.

Police officers spoke with residents of the village of Nogir, who opposed the transfer of agricultural land for the construction of a satellite city of Vladikavkaz. However, officials did not respond to the villagers' calls to prevent the development.

As reported by "Caucasian Knot," in September, residents of the village of Nogir, in a video message to Putin, asked for help in protecting their agricultural land. They explained that local authorities intend to allocate these lands for development for the "Simd Valley" project, although the head of North Ossetia, at the request of villagers, had previously decided that "Simd Valley" would be built on land in the village of Gizel.

Residents of Nogir who opposed the development of land for the Simd Valley project faced pressure from security forces, a source living in Vladikavkaz but familiar with the situation in the village told a Caucasian Knot correspondent on condition of anonymity.

Police came and "held conversations"

"Police came to the activists and "held conversations." Provocations were also staged at a meeting of residents of the village of Gizel, where the Simd Valley project is planned to be relocated, who are also categorically against this construction," he said.

According to him, the authorities made no secret of the construction plans in Nogir. "There were announcements of the construction in the press and on television. The document was discovered on the government procurement website after the construction had been promised to be cancelled," he noted, emphasizing that the authorities have "not responded at all" to appeals from Nogir residents.

The land itself, according to him, is pasture, but part is plowed under corn. The source doubted that the authorities really plan to allocate this land for housing for SVO participants.

"This (in my purely personal opinion, which is not supported by any evidence) is another lie to push through the construction of the 'Simd Valley' under this guise. Personally, I (and the vast majority of those I know) have an extremely negative attitude towards this. Vladikavkaz and its suburbs are filled with unsold housing. There is no housing shortage in the republic whatsoever. New neighborhoods, even those built more than five years ago, are at least a third empty. All the development is being done solely to please developers, without the slightest consideration for the needs or opinions of the population," he said.

Nothing has been sown there for a long time, only cows graze here and there.

In turn, an Ossetian activist, who also asked that his name not be published, believes that the decision to transfer land to SVO participants has indeed been made. "The decision has already been made – these lands will be used to allocate plots for individual housing construction to SVO participants," he told a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

He confirmed that most of this land is pasture. "This is collective farm land, but nothing has been sown there for a long time, only cows graze here and there. "But the land problem isn't in Nogir anymore, but in Alagir, where the land has been bought up by landowners, and sometimes there's nowhere even for cows to graze. Few people farm in Nogir now; it's practically become part of the city... But now, instead of a unified satellite city project, they'll likely get developers who will buy up the land piece by piece and build anyway—only without a unified plan," he said.