**An hour ago outside the Moscow City Duma. ** A picket by “defrauded co-investors” against deputy Mitrokhin. They are demanding his resignation so that he can make way for those who “truly serve the people.” The essence of the conflict: we (the Committee for the Protection of Muscovites) oppose development on “Zelyonaya Gorka” in Bogorodskoye and in the protected zone of Losiny Ostrov (Elk Island National Park). But the city construction complex has designated these sites as “compensation for investors building housing for defrauded co-investors.” There are a great many co-investors, and they are united in various organizations. This particular faction believes that solving their problems means to hell with everyone else. In other words, they think housing should just be thrown up for them without any permits or reviews, on other people’s residential land, taking over public gardens and green spaces. I feel sorry for the co-investors, but I didn’t deceive them. And the residents of Bogorodskoye (Rokossovsky Boulevard and Pogonny Proyezd) didn’t deceive them either and owe them nothing. It is obvious that the construction complex is simply staging a provocation and setting the co-investors and local residents against each other in order to push through development on these territories under the guise of solving an “acute social problem.” They have tried to build on these sites many times before, but after mass protests the paperwork was always halted. Now they’ve decided to fight fire with fire. Characteristically, these creeps were allowed to hold their picket directly opposite the main entrance to the Moscow City Duma. Whereas for us (and everyone else too), over the past year the best they have approved for picketing has been a small square on Neglinnaya Street, that is, 500 meters away from the Duma. Naturally, the picket drew a full house from the city media. To be fair, only eight pathetic scabs turned up from among the co-investors. And in fact only two thick-faced little creeps in caps did any speaking at all. The words “the First Deputy Mayor of Moscow in the Moscow government gave an order, and Mitrokhin is sabotaging it...” were uttered with downright reverence. It is encouraging that most co-investor organizations understand that this is a simple con job by Resin and the company Atoll, which is just trying to squeeze out fatter compensation. On that same “Zelyonaya Gorka,” they want to build some 35-story towers. At one time we crushed Atoll over their project on Pogonny Proyezd, where they started building a house in a public garden with no paperwork whatsoever, and now they’ve found defenders in the form of two goats in caps. I was terribly upset to see one journalist I know, who used to run a section in his news agency called “Luzhkov and the Lawlessness of Construction Monopolies,” and was now organizing this crap. I even went at him too hard in the heat of the moment when he started mouthing off. Five people from MolYabloko came from our side to the picket (the police detained all of them), the “Greens” led by vkuzn, and about 15 local residents who tried to explain something to the people in caps, though obviously it was pointless. Here you can see how it all happened.
