The Ministry of Property and Land Relations of Crimea initiated an auction, the item of which was the leasing of the current Crimean Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate premise (CD of UOC-KP).
The starting price of the premise with a total area of 112.6 m2 located at 17, Sevastopolskaya St, Simferopol, was 83 932 rubles (33 408 hryvnyas) per month. The Crimean Diocese of the UOC-KP is located at the same address on the first floor of the building.
Information about this auction was posted on the website torgi.gov.ru.
The auction was conducted without coordination with the current tenant – the head of the CD of UOC-KP Archbishop Clement. “The “Ministry of Property and Land Relations of the Republic of Crimea” was provided with all the documents regarding the church’s property and the church’s ownership of these premises. I was assured that the conflict would be resolved and closed. Moreover, earlier Aksenov personally promised not to allow of this situation,” the Internet-resource “Golos Kryma” (“Voice of Crimea”) quotes the Archbishop.
The Archbishop Evstratiy, the adviser of Kyivan Patriarchate, Archbishop of Chernihiv and Nizhyn, commented on this situation for the journalist of the media “Pod pricelom” this way: “Everything that is going on now is the pressure on our church members and the political exclusion of the Kyivan Patriarchate from Crimea, so its activity is not prohibited directly. The evil thing is made through seizure of property. This is the well-known Russian policy that they often use – the policy of coercion, one of tasks of which is to make the Crimean Diocese to leave the territory of Crimea or register under the Russian law,” the Archbishop Evstratiy said.
In addition, he added that the UOC-KP plans to seek an advice of human rights defenders: “We address the international community and human rights organizations with appeal to condemn another act of gross violation of the Crimean Ukrainian citizens’ rights for cultural activities. We believe that the external pressure on the Russian occupation authorities will make its representatives in Crimea not to act so rudely. It is because the only thing they worry about is the international image. However, if some decision was taken already in the “high offices”, then we can’t predict the further scenario.”
The auction of the tenancy won the Public non-commercial movement “Razum”. They offered 150 thousand rubles per month for leasing the property.
The Public non-commercial movement “Razum” was registered in Crimea under the Russian law on January 1, 2015. The Charter of the organization states that the main line of its activity is “the assistance in consolidation of entrepreneurs engaged into small and medium-sized businesses to create favorable economic, legal and other conditions for the development of business activities that will provide the efficient growth of the Crimean economy.” The head of “Razum” is a certain Vladimir Borisov.
As a reminder, at the end of February the auction organizer – the Ministry of Property – drew a bill at the rate of more than 90 thousand rubles (45 thousand hryvnyas) on the CD of UOC-KP for the leasing of premises.
