The Night of the Bulldozers

February 12, 2016


February-2016-Open-Wall-header

The Night of the Bulldozers

In the middle of an economic crisis, and in the middle of the night, the Moscow mayor’s office bulldozed dozens of “illegal” small businesses near metro stations; and drove a coach and horses through the Constitution.

“Чье поле, того и воля” (“Whoever has the field, can do what he likes” Russian proverb)
“Чье поле, того и воля” (“Whoever has the field, can do what he likes” Russian proverb)

During the night of 8/9 February, the Moscow mayor’s office dismantled dozens of “illegal” kiosks, close by several metro stations. This was a blitzkrieg operation – 700 bulldozers, an army of workers under police protection, mayoral officials and the local district authorities. Kiosk owners tried to protest, and in several cases tried to barricade themselves into their small shops to save them from destruction, but to no avail.

Justifying the destruction, the Moscow authorities referred to a new article of the Civil Code, which came into force in the summer of 2015, which makes it legal to demolish unauthorised structures erected on top of municipal utilities.

The PR team from the Moscow city government put out a press release saying that the authorities were knocking down “ugly shanty town-type constructions, which have been a blot on the Moscow landscape for more than 20 years.” Commandeering legal jargon, they said that, “the period granted for the voluntary dismantling of 96 dangerous self-build constructions expired on 8 February.”

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin declared that, “the places where these kiosks were standing will be landscaped and the previous owners will, if they so wish, be offered an opportunity to build commercial facilities in other places, and on a legal footing.” Note the importance our mayor places on legal procedure.

Where these “other places” will be, no one is saying. Hopefully, the promised landscaping will be better than the dormitory suburbs, where the process of knocking down kiosks started somewhat earlier; the landscape there is still adorned with gaping areas of waste ground. The word is that the Orthodox Church has offered to build churches on the empty lots …

Mayor Sobyanin was absolutely sure of his facts, and the rightness of his actions. “You cannot hide behind the papers of property acquired by clearly fraudulent means. We’re bringing Moscow back to Muscovites; its parks, squares and streets.” It is heartening to see how the mayor places such faith in the law, although he gave no specific examples of the illegal acquisition of property.

Most observers have reacted negatively to the destruction. Opposition politician Sergei Mitrokhin said: “The kiosks, which have been knocked down had for many years provided Muscovites with essential goods and services at affordable prices and in convenient locations … This barbarian deed will mean, firstly, increased prices – because there will be less competition – and secondly, loss of employment and earnings for thousands of people who had been engaged in small business.”

Demyan Kudryavtsev, owner of the Moscow Times and Vedomosti agreed: “When the bulldozer knocks down the chocolate kiosk, which will have cost 14 million pre-crisis roubles to build, decorate and open up, this cannot be described as normality. And there would have been no difficulty in doing this in a more humane fashion … In a country where the main post-Soviet task should have been to make citizens out of temporary workers, respectable burghers out of the landless, and productive people out of scroungers, why did they have to pick the worst example to follow? Because, until they realise that they have to be accountable, both business and the government will always take the easiest path.”

Caption “The government continues to support small businesses, which should be the mainstay of the economy.” President Putin, January 2016
“The government continues to support small businesses, which should be the mainstay of the economy.” President Putin, January 2016

And that was when it started getting interesting.

No more than a day after the destruction of the kiosks, it became clear that the Moscow authorities had been rather negligent in compiling a list of what was to be knocked down; as a result there were several completely legal constructions near the condemned kiosks, which were also destroyed by the bulldozers.

And it turns out that, in actual fact, many of the kiosk owners had papers that were in order: some of them had lease agreements for their plots of land, which were scheduled to run out only in 2020.

Apparently mindful of the law, the Moscow authorities had previously challenged the validity of the kiosk owners’ documents; and lost. In April 2015, the Supreme Court refused an application by the mayor’s office to invalidate the registration of ownership of one of the demolished pavilions in the Oktyabrskoye Pole metro station, which had been properly registered in 2002.

RBK Daily newspaper is now saying that the Moscow authorities have been able to prove that only 6% of kiosks destroyed, were illegal. Looking at the 104 cases that have been – and are still going through – the courts, in 48 cases, the court was on the side of the entrepreneurs; and in only three cases, have the authorities managed to prove unauthorised construction.

The latest news is that the dispossessed owners are preparing lawsuits for compensation.

The right to private property is protected by Article 35 of the Russian Constitution, but what of it: the Night of the Bulldozers shows we have a government that thinks it has every right to ride roughshod over the law. This is a government that has no idea about how to build; it can only destroy.