Today the authorities may bring to an end
the public discussions on the route of the new Moscow-St Petersburg
highway: the highway will based based on its original route,
which envisages the elimination of Khimki Forest.
The “additional public and expert discussions”, which should
have been held on the instructions of the President to the
Prime Minister, turned out to be nothing more than a fiction.
The authorities did not issue any assessments on the alternative
routes of the highway. We believe that an expansion in the
Leningradskoye highway in the area of the City of Khimki to
be the most efficient project here.
In violation of the law, a reserve way of the Leningradskoye
highway was built with shopping centres in the 1990s and 2000s.
The resulting transport collapse is today the key argument
why the highway should run through Khimki Forest. However,
it is obvious that the construction of a paid highway, while
maintaining the shopping centres in their current state, will
not free up Leningradskoye highway.
Today it is necessary to confiscate from shopping centres
plots of land used that they use for parking.
We understand that a reduction of the number of parking spaces
will result in reduced profits and losses for shopping centres.
However, we think that the comfort of drivers and the state
of the environment in Moscow region are more important than
the profits of bad faith businessmen, who acquired these extremely
profitable plots of land for bribes.
A decision to build the highway through Khimki Forest can
only be adopted to benefit corrupt bureaucrats and related
businessmen.
Sergei Mitrokhin,
Chair of the YABLOKO party
See also:
Protection
of Environment
YABLOKO
conducted a picket in support of Yevgenia Chirikova. Press
Release and a Video. July 4, 2010
YABLOKO’s picket:
“Heads of the Khimki police to trial!”. Press Release. July
3, 2010.
Court ruled out
Sergei Mitrokhin guilty of disobeying police orders. YABLOKO’s
protest action. Press Release. July 3, 2010.
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