Land Not For Everyone: Former Village Near Minsk Turns Into “Drazdy”

People are evicted from the settlement Vesninka in Minsk for the sake of houses for officials.

A public debate concerning housing development in the territory of the former village continues in Minsk. It is planned to build a hotel, a sports complex and elite buildings. People are evicted from the private housing of the inner suburbs “Selhaspasiolak” in Minsk, and the authorities say that it is impossible to offer land for single-family homes within the limits of Minsk. Though there is land they could lay claim to even in Central district of Minsk, in Vesninka, Belsat reports.

The day before the public debate of the real estate development of Vesninka was really heated. Dwellers believe it was just a formal discussion, as construction of some buildings has already started. According to the development master plan of Minsk, part of land is given to investors, and the rest is offered for cooperative housing projects and elite high-rise buildings.

“These plots of land have already been allocated for certain persons, they are obviously not families with many children, but some people from government agencies,” believes one of the participants of the public debate.

It is planned to build a hotel and sports centre in Vesninka, and sell part of the land to Russians. Persons moved from the private housing area “Selhaspasiolak”, who are to be left without a roof over their heads very soon, are not offered anything concrete so far, but they are warned: they could receive land for single-family houses only outside Minsk.

“Dwellers of the private housing area, whose houses are to be knocked down, have a right to demand compensation for the destroyed buildings. It would be fair to allocate land for them within the limits of the city they live in,” – they believe.

But land in Minsk is expensive, and the less land is left, the more savage struggle for each land plot is taking place.

Vesninka has already been ironically called Drazdy-2 by people, a land there is allotted without auction bidding. According to the new master plan, there would be more than 100 private lots there, and they have already been distributed.