Dwelling area in Sochi to be constructed on the fields of selection varieties of tea and hazel-nut

Dwelling houses and cottages are prepared to be built on the territories of the All-Russia research institute of horticulture and sub-tropic plants in Sochi, used for cultivating selection varieties. In the course of clearing them, bulldozers have already entered a plot with the best selection varieties of tea and hazel-nut.

This 0.5 hectare plot was founded in 1996. The best varieties of tea and hazel-nut have been collected there by selection work. The mother graft collection, as the researchers call it, was intended for subsequent multiplication and cultivation of commercial truebred plantations of these staple crops of the Black Sea coast in the Caucasus.

Madzhid Tuov has been engaged in tea selection for 43 years. Doctor of sciences (agriculture), head of tea and sub-tropical plants section, he is winner of the State Prize of Russia for his professional achievements.

"Clearing out of the plantations can not be called, other than barbarism. It is an irreparable damage. The forty-year work is destroyed virtually overnight. It is thriftless", he says.

The Olympic department of the Krasnodar Krai explains that the decision on stopping the unlimited use of part of land of the All-Russia research institute was made by the Federal Agency on State Property Management (instruction No 613-r dated 17.06.2010). The instruction was issued in conformance with the procedure established by the federal law No 310 "On Organizing and Holding of ХХII Olympic and Para-Olympic Games in 2014 in Sochi".

The land plots withdrawn from unlimited use are intended for the construction "of dwelling area along Yan Fabricius Street". Houses and cottages are going to be built there for the Sochi residents whose real estate will be alienated during the construction of the Olympic facility "Central Thoroughfare of Sochi "Alternate Road of Kurortny Avenue". It is planned to build about 50 cottages and 8 blocks of flats on the land formerly belonging to the research institute.

Having received the information on the imminent alienation of land, the institute staff applied for preserving the most valuable plants and collections intact and offered other cultivated plots in exchange, but the boundaries of the construction site were not altered.