EcoLur
Russian ecologist Suren Ghazaryan became a political emigrant and now is out of the country, in Estonia. As Deputy Coordinator of “Environmental Watch on North Caucasus” Dmitry Shevchenko said in his interview with EcoLur, currently the organization is seeking to stop the criminal case initiated against Suren Ghazaryan. “All this started because our organization opposed to the illegal site development of the Black sea coast by top official and church top hierarchy. In 2011 we held a public inspection of the forest fund territories, where three buildings were in the progress of construction: so-called Putin’s palace, a summer house for Russian Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and a summer house for Krasnodar Regional Governor Alexander Tkachev. The land areas of the forest fund are not subject to any site development. But we can see how trees have cut down, including such red-listed trees, as Crimean pine and Turkish pine. Naturally they immediately drove us out and we didn’t manage to take any photos. In February 2011 we organized a Satruday picnic in the territory of the forest fund, i.e. in Governer Tkachov’s summer house. Measures of administrative arrest was imposed on five organizers – Suren Ghazaryan, Yevgeny Vitishko, Zufar Achilov and me. Suren and I were kept in the detention room for 7 days. The next demonstration was held in August 2011, when we tried to enter the territory of the summer house from the sea. Again we were driven out with the help of Ministry of Emergency States. In November 2011, when we again tried to take photos of the governor’s summer house, the company-site developer made a report to the police on initiating a criminal case. In the absence of proof, Suren Ghazaryan was sentenced to imprisonment for 3 years on condition. After he managed to enter the territory of Putin’s palace, the conditional imprisonment turned into a real one and Suren had to become a refugee.” As Dmitry Shevchenko noted, at present Putin’s skiing resort is constructed in the Caucasian State Nature Biosphere Reserve, which in included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
February 08, 2013 at 12:12