Pakhomov urges Imereti residents to move out before March 31

Anatoly Pakhomov, Acting Mayor of the city of Sochi, has notified the residents of the Imereti Valley that to clear space for construction of Olympic objects they should finally move out of their houses by March 31.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on February 12, this deadline was announced by Vasily Naziradze, deputy head of the administration of the Krasnodar Territory.

On February 14, more than 100 local residents rallied in a small lobby of the local rural school. Only the 29 residents of the Nizhne-Imeretinskaya Street, whose houses are subject to demolition, were invited to this meeting. However, much more people came to talk to Mr Pakhomov.

In wait for the city Mayor, they discussed the plan offered by the authorities: those who have to leave their houses in the first order, but would not like to occupy flats, preferring to get a land plot, are offered to have temporary residence at hotels and sanatoria while individual houses will be built for them.

"Everyone treats the idea negatively. I think, you first build new house, and them have us resettled. How do they imagine it? Where should we put our belongings? And domestic animals? They say: hire containers, but who will pay for them?" Lyubov Golovchenko complained to the "Gazeta.Ru".

However, according to Vasily Naziradze, new houses are already in construction, "to be completed by 2010," the ITAR-TASS reports.

Those, who are not threatened by resettlement, also face problems, typical for close neighbourhood with a huge building site. Now, close to the district, inhabited by about 3000 persons, they start building a freight terminal. Svetlana Beresteneva, a resident of the "Rossiya" state farm, said that they are hammering piles even late at night; therefore nobody can sleep. All the roads are ruined by heavy trucks.

According to Mayor Pakhomov, the Olympic construction should in no case worsen the life of people. He even promised to suspend all the works, should the building companies fail to make special temporary roads for their trucks. To the question why they do not install anti-noise screens around construction sites to protect people from round-the-clock noise, the Mayor gave no answer, but asked not to pump up extra problems, and even suspected those who are doing it of bribability.

Natalia Kalinovskaya, chair of the "Psou" local self-government partnership, who defends the rights of Imereti residents, has taken this suspicion personally. In her opinion, people are "agitated" not by her, but by uncertainty in the real estate buyout issue. Only two families out of several hundreds have so far received evaluation certificates. The others are still listening to explanation of the authorities that repayment prices are being corrected because of the recession in the real estate market.

A couple of months back, Vitaly Ponamaryov, head of the Olympic Department of the Territory, said that the land in Imereti Valley was evaluated at 60,000-80,000 US dollars per one hundred square metres. Now, according to Ms Kalinovskaya, the rate was reduced to 35-45 thousand. One should note that the market price, referred to by bureaucrats, in relation to the land plots within the Olympic construction zone, is in much a virtual phenomenon. There is only one player in the market of Imereti real estate - the government.