Battle of Kursk

Businessmen from prestigious places in the center of the capital survive by fire and court

On the night of June 18, one of the shopping malls blazed up in the area of the Kursk railway station. Tenants and the owner of the building are sure - the fire did not occur by accident, it was a fire. Recently, entrepreneurs have been under constant pressure. Representatives of the local authorities have long been trying to squeeze them out of a "lively place."

"On the second floor of the building, which is located opposite, the employees of the advertising company rent the room. They worked that night. And the guys-advertisers saw two healthy young men in masks running up to the pavilion, and soon a fire broke out, "says businessman Gulny Murzabekova. She, like other businessmen who rented that night, lost everything. In the burned down shopping complex there were no boutiques and expensive branded shops. There were small shops where they sold food, pet products, clothes. The owner attracted tenants, primarily by the availability of fees, took only two thousand rubles per square meter, which is very inexpensive by Moscow standards.

Alexei Kokhanov received the building in the property in the late 90's. The store was in a sorry state. The entrepreneur gradually reconstructed the premises, ready to lease, and continued to repair the proceeds. But in a two thousandth for a shopping complex a real war unfolded. On Kohanova the local prefecture took up arms.

In 2010, it came to court. And the judges made a paradoxical decision - the two-story shopping complex is not real estate. A pier, in its basis metal structures which can be disassembled and transferred to other place. This is what Kokhanov was urged to do. "There, the concrete pillow is poured, on which it stands, and inside the finish, all communications are summed up, and underground, there is a foundation," says the entrepreneur. - In the prefecture I was offered to voluntarily disassemble everything and take it away. To my question "Where?", They answered "It does not concern us".

Kokhanov, to dismantle and transport the shopping complex did not go anywhere. His rightness and the right of the building to be considered real estate, he tries to prove in the courts of higher instances. But the land in the center of Moscow is now worth its weight in gold. The opponents were not going to lose the tidbit, and they were ready to get sweet square meters by any means: "The manager of illegal construction in the Basmanny District Dobrovolsky began to appear from time to time in my pavilion and talk to my tenants. Like, why do you pay Kohanov a rent, he is now here no one, he is deprived of the right of ownership, he has no right to work here and even more to rent something, "the entrepreneur recalls.

In the last months before the fire, the pressure has increased especially. Entrepreneurs were urged to vacate the premises and promised to build a new "Rechnik". Before the bulldozers, however, it did not happen. To combat stubbornness, other means were used. As a result, many of them not only lost their property - they lost their only source of income. "I came to this very hard, I opened my own business and put in all my savings that I saved up in my whole life. I bring up one child, I am a single mother and now I am without means of livelihood because of what happened, "says the individual entrepreneur Margarita Zeynalova.

The development of small and medium-sized businesses in Russia is one of the priority tasks and all authorities must make every effort to resolve it. But when it comes to land in the area of the Kursk railway station and the Garden Ring, all the priorities, apparently, go to the background. It is rumored that big people have decided to build a shopping center in the place of a shopping center, or a parking lot. And certainly with ridiculous rental rates (two thousand per meter) will be done away with.

Alexei Kokhanov and his tenants still can not get the authorities to make a clear decision on the payment of compensation for the damage done, the battle is still going on. Despite the fact that the examination of the Ministry of Emergency Measures confirmed the fact of arson and the case was transferred to the Internal Affairs Department of Basmanny District, law enforcement bodies do not want to seriously investigate the version with arson.