Elena Demidova with two under-aged children lives in a hall of residence that is being demolished. Elena used to work for Yuzhzelenhoz enterprise, which gave her a room. However, in 2006 the enterprise was sold to OOO RogSibAl. The new proprietor required that she moved and offered her another room with the area of 18.6 sq.m instead of 27.7 sq.m at the previous place. And according to the Sochi norms of housing, Demidovs must be given 54 sq.m. of living space. Nevertheless, on 26 June the Adler district court made a decision of eviction. 

“The investor’s representative, Mr. Vetrov, has ordered the workers to demolish the building despite the fact we are still staying here” says Elena Demidova.  

Even worse are the things with Nadejda Papsueva. In her time she also received a room in a hall of residence belonging to Yuzhzelenhoz. Last year she retired, after which the Adler City Court decided she should be evicted without allowing her any housing in exchange.

“Having worked for the state for many years, now I find myself to become a person with no fixed abode. And the law forbids evicting the pensioners” says Nadejda looking at the ruins of her former room. She has been staying with her relative at the moment, as she can’t afford renting any housing in Sochi.

People relate RogSibAl Company with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. If the company planned construction not in the Imeretinskaya Bay but on the lands of the acquired by it Yuzhzelenhoz enterprise, then it could have been possible to avoid conflict between the authorities and population. 

Imeretinskaya Bay people are concerned with uncertainty of the Olympic plans. They have managed to get the unpublished draft of the planning of the local territories. The lands for resettlement were marked there too. But it turned out that almost a quarter of those lands have been put on sale in the Internet: 1.25 hectare is pointed to be a property of a certain OOO Kvartal-Sochi and is offered for 4.5 million euro.  

In the meantime, Olympic construction has not been started yet in Imeretinskaya Bay and the weeds are growing at the place of the stadiums-to-be. The locals are convinced that this taking away of the land is motivated not with Olympic needs but with commercial interests.     

When meeting with the local dwellers, Vitaly Ponomarev, the head of Kuban department for preparation for the Olympiad, informed that in case of disagreement with this eviction the only procedure applied would be coming the bailiffs to the sites.   

“They said on the krai and local TV stations that we are saboteurs. Then they passed information that everyone agreed to this resettlement. We are shocked with this lie!” says a local dweller Irina Petukhova. 

The concrete wall encircling the site of the planned construction of the Second Cargo port is the most independent media in Imeretinskaya Bay today. Next day after the wall appeared, someone wrote on it the signs “We love Sochi without port”, “Don’t kill me. Your beach”, “Sochi is a resort, not a port”.  

Natalia Kalinovskaya, the chair of the territorial public self-government “Psow” says that the builders had no rights to start construction of the Second Cargo Port.  

“They did not have surveying materials, cadastral and architectural plans, and project documentation. They only had the resolution by the governor Tkachev. I called the district police officer, and the ecologists drew up a report of illegal felling.”    

The construction is suspended at the moment. The building works have been headed by Konstantin Sirotniuk who alleged he represented Rosmorport. Afterwards, the press office of this organization stated it has no relation to this construction. 

“According to the governor’s order, the cargo port was to be built in the mouth of the Psow River. However, the appendix contained the list of plots situated in a densely populated district of Imeretinskaya Bay. So there they tried to begin building works” said Mikhail Merkulov, the representative of Investor and Businessmen Association Of Nizhneimeretinskaya lowland.  

Due to conflicts going on between the local population and authorities, summer holiday-makers – the only source of revenue for the local dwellers - avoid coming to the place. Today the sun is shining over empty beaches of Imeretinskaya Bay.