Rostovites appealed to the President of Russia with a request to stop the destruction of the Left Bank Grove

Rostov residents turned to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request to save the grove on the left bank of the Don from destruction. More than 1,100 people signed a petition, expressing hope that the president will be able to stop corruption schemes and curb the appetites of Rostov officials who, bypassing the rules established by law, allocate large plots of land in the water protection zone to their cronies.

“You have repeatedly demanded that law enforcement agencies and officials at various levels eradicate corruption and act in the interests of Russian citizens,” residents of Rostov-on-Don note in their address to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin.

Citizens informed the head of state that for many years along Shosseynaya Street on the banks of the Don River there has been a green area where ash, acacia and willow trees grow. This is the only grove in the area, and they plan to destroy it for the construction of residential buildings.

“Construction of other large residential areas is underway and planned at a distance of more than 300 meters from the shore. And here city officials give away the most delicious piece of land under the grove to their confidants, as if there were few other places where there were wastelands,” the appeal says.

Residents doubt that after the development of the territory under the grove by a large developer, ordinary people will be able to go to the Don: most likely, the territory of the new “elite” complex will be fenced off with fences. “Rostovites from all over the city came here to relax, but the administration transferred the grove from recreational use to land for the development of multi-storey buildings. In essence, they have thereby authorized the destruction of the natural park and are giving the territory to a specific developer,” write the Rostov residents.

The authors of the petition to Putin are also not sure that during the compensatory planting, only “twigs” will be planted instead of tall trees, and such cases of “greening” of territories developed by developers have already happened in the city.

Residents claim that the city administration, headed by Alexey Logvinenko donated the grove, where townspeople came to relax, for the construction of multi-storey buildings, which in fact means the undoubted cutting down of the Left Bank Grove and the transfer of the territory for development to a developer known in the city for his connections with the administration.

In an appeal to the President of Russia, Rostov residents note that the project has already gone through the approval procedure in the city’s Public Chamber, where the chairman is the former mayor of Rostov Mikhail Chernyshev. He is famous for the fact that, in a strange way, he and his daughter received plots that previously belonged to the Botanical Garden of the Southern Federal University. The daughter was later found guilty of land fraud.

Residents learned that the city administration plans to carry out the project as a major investment project in order to receive the site for free, despite its estimated cost of more than 1 billion rubles. According to Rostovites, this is a lost profit for the city budget.

“Help us! Give the command to the insatiable officials to stop tormenting their hometown, destroying the green island to line their pockets with money! And we ask you to instruct the Prosecutor’s Office and the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation to check the unruly lawbreakers,” the Rostov residents addressed President Putin.