Residents of several private hostels of regional center took to the protest to show the government that they are willing to live in tents on the street, in case if the owners of living quarters will move them out.
Photo: the author
The reason for the protests on April 17 near the city administration and the regional government was an outrage of tenants by activity of owners of some hostels. In particular, the owners of the hostel, located on Komsomolskaya Street, 19, decided to move tenants out the living quarters occupied by them. Besides, in coordination with the municipal authorities there is a redevelopment of residential premises in which people live; more specifically — some walls are demolished with sledgehammers.
According to protesters, the conflict with the owners resulted from the fact that city officials want to force them to leave hostels and to settle those places with citizens living in dilapidated buildings. Let us add that Coordinating Council of hostels in Kirov, created earlier, addressed to the working group on problems of gubernatorial private residences of the Kirov region on the meeting in the light of the deteriorating situation. However, the authorities didn’t react yet.
"Since 2005, the owners of the hostels have been putting pressure on us to evict. People are just desperate at the moment: local and regional authorities are doing everything to dishouse us by using owners. In case we are evicted, we’ll have to live in tents on the street; we have demonstrated it at the moving picket today," co-organizer of the protest Marina Shutova told «7x7».
It should be noted that in August 2010, a tire factory workers living in the hostel on Svobody Street, conducted a hunger strike after bailiffs withdrawn money of the Kirov residents’ personal accounts to repay the rent. Despite the fact that the residents lived in rooms, they had to pay for utilities as much as people pay for a two-bedroom separate apartment.
Sergey Zhilin, «7x7»
Original: http://7x7-journal.ru/item/40835
