"Novaya Gazeta" describes life of villagers near "Putin's palace"

The construction of the palace described in the resonant investigation by Alexei Navalny deprived residents of the village of Praskoveevka of their agricultural and hunting lands, a beach and recreation places, but villagers are afraid to openly criticize Vladimir Putin.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in January, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF, recognized in the Russian Federation as a foreign agent, – note of the "Caucasian Knot"), released an investigation entitled "A Palace for Putin" on the construction on Cape Idokopas near Gelendzhik of the largest private house in Russia with the area exceeding 17,000 square metres.

About 300 people live in the village of Praskoveevka; many of them worked at the construction site, which was named "Putinka" by them. Praskoveevka, like the entire territory adjacent to the palace, is constantly monitored by law enforcers, says Ilya Azar's material published on February 19 by the "Novaya Gazeta" newspaper. The material is entitled "On a farmyard near the palace".

According to Oleg Tsyganov, a former head of the village, until the early 2000s, policemen never visited these places, but now everything is flooded with law enforcers. Prior to the construction of the palace, villagers freely grazed their livestock, hunted and fished in this area, but then they had to change their lifestyle.

"Until recently, the 'Putin's fence' surrounding the territory of the palace passed along the border of Praskoveevka, but last year it moved deeper and enclosed almost all the lower part of the village, including recreation centre and vineyards," the newspaper article says.

"The coast was blocked off; and there was a beach there for the locals, the most ecologically clean one; we used to bathe there. (...) The best hunting place was in the Dark Gorge. We always hunted there; this is our food, but now we cannot go into the forest at all – a huntsman appears right away and says that this is private property," said one of the local residents.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on February 19, 2021 at 08:59 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.