An Open Letter to the International Community from the residents of the "Muromtsev Dacha"
We, the residents of the “Muromtsev Dacha“, call on the international community to take a stand against the very serious human rights violations being perpetrated against our families by the local authority in Moscow.
On Sunday, March 7, 2010, Moscow security forces and demolition workers tore down our home to make way for one of the Government's planned development projects, leaving our families homeless, including 5 children and a woman due to give birth.
No explanations were given and no documents were provided to us. The authorities referred to the eviction of our families and the demolition of our home as a "debris removal operation".
The Muromtsev Dacha had been one of the last remaining historic wooden houses on the outskirts of Moscow, which sits on land which unscrupulous people have been keen to acquire because of its high value and prime location in the capital of the Russian Federation. It had a long and distinguished history of owners, occupants and visitors, extending over a century.
It had originally been built for Sergey Muromtsev, a famous Russian lawyer and the chairman of the pre-revolutionary Russian parliament. It is also famous as a place where Ivan Bunin, a Nobel Prize-winning Russian writer, was introduced to his future wife, Vera Muromtseva. Following the Revolution of 1917, the building was used for many different purposes. It served variously as a boarding school, as teachers' housing, and a Natural Sciences research institute.
Three generations of our family have lived in the Muromtsev Dacha since the 1930s. Our 104-year-old great-grandmother was one of the first inhabitants of the house, where she was registered as a geography teacher in 1937.
The school, the Capital, and the research institute together brought many people to the house, and it became Tsaritsino’s unofficial cultural center. It was a gathering place for artists, composers, musicians, performers, poets, illustrators, and journalists, including the Russian artist Konstantin Vasilyev, the sculptor Vyacheslav Klykov, the Soviet author Leonid Borodin, the writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the artists L.Timofeev and I.Glazunov, the journalist Paul Khlebnikov, and many others.
This inspired us to set up our own small museum there. It was dedicated to telling the remarkable story of the house and the famous people who had worked and lived there. Foremost amongst these was the writer Venedikt Yerofeyev, who was living there when he wrote the famous “Vasiliy Rozanov” and “Walpurgis Night“.
In the early 1990’s, the house was crossed off the city's official maps and, thereafter, remained unknown, unmapped, and undocumented...
Our great-grandmother was registered here, our grandmother was born here, our father was born here, we were born here. Our longtime occupation of the premises can be easily documented. Such occupation under existing law conveys to the occupier legal ownership of the property under article 234 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The text reads as follows:
“The person - the citizen or the legal entity - who is not the owner of the property, but who has, in good faith, openly and uninterruptedly, possessed the realty as his own immovable property in the course of fifteen years, or any other property in the course of five years, shall acquire the right of ownership to this property (the acquisitive prescription.)”
Though we have asked the authorities to recognize our legitimate right to dwell in the Dacha, we have been constantly and unjustly thwarted by the Courts.
On the night of January 2nd, 2010, shortly before the Russian Supreme Court session of March 15, 2010 in which a decision was to be made on the case, the dacha inexplicably caught fire and was severely damaged.
It is quite clear that the building was set alight intentionally. The fire started in an unoccupied room on the ground floor. This room had no electrical outlets and was unheated.
Before the fire, we have received veiled threats from local authorities suggesting that a fire could break out. Indeed, on one occasion, the head of the local police department told one of the residents privately, "You understand, there might be a fire. The house is there today, but tomorrow it could be torched. Do you need that? Leave peacefully!"
Firefighters arriving at the scene refused to extinguish the flames, stating that they had “received orders“ to not save the house. Numerous firefighters were then observed - and even photographed - looting personal belongings and valuable pieces from the Dacha’s museum. The house was severely damaged, leaving our families with virtually nothing, and in desperate need of food and blankets ... The museum also burned, and many of its exhibits were also lost.
Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov dismissed calls for an investigation into the Muromtsev Dacha fire, calling the building a “cabin”.
Hundreds of volunteer Muscovites who were not indifferent to our plight helped us set up temporary shelters near the burnt house. They gave us food and money and helped us rake through the ashes, digging out items from the museum. Fortunately, several museum pieces somehow managed to survive the blaze.
On Sunday, March 7, 2010, the Moscow authorities chose to play out the final act in their campaign to evict our families. Police and military were present in number. While physically abusing and intimidating protesters, they prevented journalists from filming the incident and, importantly, from documenting illegal police misconduct while enforcing an equally illegal decision of demolition and eviction. More than one protester received death threats from the police. Two female protesters were hospitalized with head injuries, and about 7 were detained.
Despite stiff resistance from the citizen-supporters who barricaded themselves in, the armed men forced their way in, removed all remaining personal property and shelter, and bulldozed what was left of the building.
We have been living in shelters for the past two months, looking over the remaining museum items, and also guarding what remained in our homes.
We had hoped to restore the Muromtsev Dacha. But this morning we had to watch while the building where our families had been living was bulldozed to the ground in the presence and with the complicity of the police. Even though we had lived on the premises for many decades, the local authorities did not even see fit to notify us of the upcoming demolition or ensure our relocation.
In sub-zero temperatures they made us leave, taking everything from us that could be taken, and leaving us with nothing. We were offered no recourse of law, but instead received threats. When they had stripped us of everything that could be taken, they bulldozed the building which had been our home, and reduced our museum to ashes.
Where our families had been living will now be built a car park. We have lost everything. We have nothing and nowhere to go.
We denounce that the government of Moscow is violating:
the right to life, the right to home, the right to the dignity of the human person, the right to a private, sovereign life, the right of social security, the right to judicial protection and the right to property guaranteed by the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
International law
the right to adequate housing, including legal security of tenure and protection from forced eviction and other harassment and threats, availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure, affordability, habitability, accessibility, location, and cultural adequacy (According to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights)
We call on the international community to help us spread the word and raise awareness of these serious human rights violations, as well as the destruction of intangible cultural heritage of Moscow.
We seek your support to urge the Government of Russia to:
• Immediately stop all the demolitions and evictions.
• Provide for the relocation of the evicted, and set a plan for the rebuilding of the Muromtsev Dacha in agreement with the interested communities in accordance with international norms.
• Grant full ownership of the new building to the rightful owners, the six families.
• Investigate and take legal action against those who allowed human rights violations to take place.
• Investigate, find, and punish the authors of the thefts, looting, arson, and harassments.
• Demand the resignation of those officials guilty of wrongdoing or complicity in these incidents.
• Guarantee the right to compensation for all the victims of the evictions, including the right of access to justice, restitution, recovery, compensation, amends and a guarantee that these violations will not be repeated again in future
Please send an appeal letter by e-mail or fax to the address listed below requesting the Government of Russia to act on this issue.
To
Dmitry Medvedev
President of the Russian Federation
23 Ilinka Street
Moscow 103132
E-mail: http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/articles/send_letter_Eng1a.shtml
Via Facsimile: +7 (495) 606 5173
CC
Boris Gryzlov
Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation
1 Okhotny Ryad Street
Moscow 103265
Russia
SOURCES:
The Murotsev Dacha in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muromtsev_Dacha
THE MOSCOW TIMES 10.03.2010 “Controversial Dacha Demolished at dawn”
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/controversial-dacha-demolished-at-dawn/401287.html
FOTOGLIF.COM 07.03.2010 “Moscow authorities demolish historic Russian Dacha”
http://www.fotoglif.com/f/c0ew67v7k96j
RADIO LIBERTY 06.01.2010 “Suspicious fire guts historic Russian Dacha”
http://www.rferl.org/content/Suspicious_Fire_Guts_Historic_Russian_Dacha/1922864.html
GLOBAL VOICES ONLINE 08.03.2010 “Muromtsev Dacha Demolished”
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/03/08/russia-muromtsev-dacha-demolished/
THE MOSCOW TIMES 18.01.2010 “After warning, historic dacha hit by mystery fire” http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/after-warning-historic-dacha-hit-by-mystery-fire/397571.html
The photos of the demolition have been posted by different bloggers and gathered at LJ community: http://community.livejournal.com/photo_polygon/1460505.htm
More photos of the demolition:
http://astapkovich-v.livejournal.com/982303.html
http://igorpodgorny.livejournal.com/119792.html
[RUS]
GRANI.RU “Moscow police threatens female protesters injured on Muromtsev Dacha demolition site” http://www.grani.ru/Events/m.175709.html
VESTI – RUSSIAN NEWS 09.03.2010 “Moscow triumph of bulldozer justice”
http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=346273&cid=7
MOSKOVSKY KOMSOMOLETS 08.03.2010 “Famous dacha bulldozed in Moscow”
http://www.mk.ru/incident/article/2010/03/08/443449-dachi-ne-nado.html
FORUM.MSK.RU 08.03.2010 “Women protesters on the front lines against Muromtsev Dacha demolition”
http://forum-msk.org/material/video/2629729.html
NOVAYAGAZETA 08.03.2010 “Heritage building demolished in Moscow”
http://novayagazeta.ru/news/778659.html
VESTI - MOSCOW NEWS 07.03.2010 “Muromtsev Dacha in its last throes of demolition”
http://www.vesti-moscow.ru/videos.html?id=55842&type=r
VESTI - MOSCOW NEWS 07.03.2010 “Muromtsev Dacha Demolition Attack”
http://www.vesti-moscow.ru/videos.html?id=55826&type=r
VESTI - RUSSIAN NEWS 07.03.2010 “Seven protesters detained while attempting to halt Muromtsev Dacha demolition”
http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=345898
RIAN.RU 07.03.2010 “Muromtsev Dacha Demolished. Seven activists detained at demolition site”
http://www.rian.ru/moscow/20100307/212715768.html
INTERFAX 07.03.2010 “Seven protesters arrested at demolition site”
http://www.interfax.ru/society/news.asp?id=126810
KOMSOMOLSKAYA PRAVDA 07.03.2010 “Muromtsev Dacha residents left to spend the night on the streets”
http://news.km.ru/zhilczov_dachi_muromczeva_ostavi
INTERFAX 07.03.2010 “Muromtsev Dacha residents left homeless in sub zero temperatures”
http://www.interfax.ru/news.asp?id=126835
