If the Moscow City Court upholds the August decision of the Gagarinsky District Court of Moscow, which canceled the privatization of more than 1,700 tourist infrastructure facilities of the Caucasian Mineral Waters, then this will mean not only inevitable problems for the resort industry of Stavropol, but also a new serious blow to the country’s economy, not to mention investors’ trust in the state. The conflict that flared up around the Kavminvod health resorts has a long history, connected with the fact that in the 90s the region’s sanatoriums became the property of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia, after which, starting in the early 2000s, they began to be sold to private businesses, including foreign investors. Since then, the new owners have invested billions of rubles in the reconstruction and improvement of old Soviet health resorts. At the same time, until now, those business transactions with trade unions have not been challenged by anyone, and even more so, no criminal cases have been opened for, for example, fraud or violations of the terms of purchase and sale. All the more surprising is the verdict of the Gagarinsky District Court of the capital, which decided to punish not only the FNPR for the incorrect implementation of resort facilities from the point of view of the prosecutor’s office, but also bona fide investors who are deprived of assets without the right to any compensation from the state. Kavminvod entrepreneurs intend to challenge this court decision in a higher instance: the first meeting of the Moscow City Court in this case is scheduled for November 22. The owners of the sanatoriums, which Themis intends to transfer to the balance of the state, sent an open letter to the Russian leadership, declaring that they were “shocked by the free interpretation of property rights and entrepreneurial initiative guaranteed by the Constitution of the Russian Federation.” The open letter stated that all 106 defendants from among the entrepreneurs who made property transactions with the FNPR are clean before the law, while the court decision directly affects more than 5 thousand employees of labor collectives of sanatorium and resort institutions and about 25 thousand employees of related companies – contractors . In the event of a large redistribution of property triggered by a court decision, these people risk losing their jobs. The Commissioner for the Rights of Entrepreneurs of the Stavropol Territory, Kirill Kuzmin, stood up for the regional health resorts, their current owners and employees, saying that the court decision actually revises the results of legal transactions after many years, which is unacceptable and illegal. Meanwhile, the President of the Russian Federation, in his recent Valdai speech, stated that there is no need to carry out nationalization in Russia, and the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Igor Krasnov, in a speech at the Eastern Economic Forum promised to protect the interests of honest business. This conceptual approach of the Russian leadership gives hope to the entrepreneurs of Pyatigorsk, Essentuki and Kislovodsk, who hope for an objective consideration of their appeal.
Master of the pen
In Russia, “the word and deed of the sovereign” have always gone hand in hand and have been a sacred concept, but one of the problems of the current moment is the attempt to drive a wedge between supreme declarations and harsh reality. In a recent Valdai speech, the President firmly stated…
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