Tkachenko family house located on Olympic route demolished in Sochi

Today, workers demolished No. 25 in Vesyolaya Street in the Adler District of Sochi, which happened to be on the Olympic route and, in the opinion of the owners – the Tkachenko family – was illegally alienated from them without due compensation.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on August 18 court marshals and OMON (special police) fighters tried to enter the house and enforce the court ruling. The residents of the house – the family with minor children – refused to quit the house asserting that the court ruling to demolish it was illegal. The house was captured by a storm. According to eyewitnesses, the head of the family and the men who tried to defend the house were beaten.

In his conversation with the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent Vladimir Tkachenko has noted that "he feels very bad after an electric shocker was applied to him, and after received stress and injuries."

He added that he was given quite a short time to evacuate his family's belongings from the house.

"It took me several hours to get from central Sochi to the Adler District. In my weak condition I tried to bring things out in complete darkness. However, at 2 a.m. they started demolishing the house. The remaining things were buried under the ruins," said Mr Tkachenko.

Earlier, the administration of Sochi stated that the administration of the Adler District had exceeded its authorities when issued in 1996 to Tkachenko the "Statement on Land Plot", where he later built the house, now demolished under the court ruling.

"I followed all the points of the 'Statement' and built the house in 1997 with my own hands and commissioned it in 2005. The house was granted an address; that is, our house was built on legal grounds in the territory leased from the state, for which we were paying the due tax," said Tkachenko.

The administration of Sochi stated that "they don't think that they are obliged to compensate material expenses on building the house and suffered losses to the family of Tkachenko."