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The men in masks and camouflage came just after 10 a.m. on Aug. 4. Jumping over fences and wielding automatic rifles, they invaded the village of Yekaterinsky Val, beating and threatening residents. A special-forces raid on a hideout of Chechen rebels? A power play between private militias battling over business plunder? Nope. The target of this assault was a cluster of modest cottages, or dachas, as they're known in Russia. "They twisted my arm and threw me on the ground and hit me several times before jumping on my back," says one of the owners, Andrei Smirnov, a mild-mannered translator who once interpreted for George W. Bush and Margaret Thatcher.
Behind the masks were marshals of the Moscow regional court, charged with enforcing a judicial order to demolish 13 of the wooden dwellings about an hour's drive outside Moscow. Like countless others surrounding the capital, the dachas of Yekaterinsky Val are relatively new, popping up like mushrooms with the new wealth that has pulsed through Russia over the past decade. And as elsewhere, they were often built a bit haphazardly and not always in conformity with nettlesome rules--like zoning ordinances or construction permits. Thus the court demolition order, on the ground that the dachas had been built too close to a water reservoir in an environmentally protected area. Dacha owners have taken the matter to the Supreme Court.
A tempest in a teapot? Not at all. The bureaucrat at the heart of the storm says the offensive in Yekaterinsky Val is only the first of many. Order must be brought to Moscow's dacha-building spree, with or without commando-style tactics, says Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the Inspectorate for the Use of Natural Resources. "We need to follow the law!" Mitvol paints himself as something of a Russian Robin Hood, a crusading bureaucrat too rich to be bribed and determined to punish wrongdoers. But critics contend that his so-called dacha war underscores how property rights remain hostage to political winds--and that the best defense is to be rich and powerful.
Mitvol reportedly became wealthy during the 1990s, partnering for a time with the exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Unusually for a Russian bureaucrat, who might normally be expected to take payoffs for keeping mum about such violations, he has run a very public campaign against dachas built without proper permission. Recently he flew journalists by helicopter over a number of huge Noviye Russkiye palaces built around the reservoir, even climbing atop a bulldozer, Boris Yeltsin style, to denounce the recalcitrant owners. Courts have already issued 140 demolition orders, and he aims for a thousand altogether, he says proudly. Investigations into ecological violations have gone up from fewer than 40 a year to nearly 400 a month since he began work at the ministry four years ago.
The problem with this picture is the Aug. 4 raid. Instead of arresting filthy-rich plutocrats and knocking down mansions, pictures in the newspapers showed ordinary middle-class families fighting to save their homes, leaving the rich untouched. "It's the courts, not me, that decide which should be knocked down," Mitvol says in his defense. Unfortunately, the only institution more devalued in the public eye than the Russian bureaucracy is the Russian court system. With the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky a not-so-distant memory, most Russians are skeptical about claims of an independent court system. "If you fly over the lake you see hundreds of houses which are much closer to the water, and they have no problems," says Smirnov. The likely reason: most of the owners are rich, he implies, and can pay to be left alone.
That's not entirely true. Mitvol is also involved in a recent investigation of one exceedingly rich man--former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, whom the Kremlin has accused of illegally acquiring a formerly state-owned dacha. But as with Khodorkovsky, many Russians suspect the probe is chiefly intended to discourage Kasyanov from entering politics, possibly as a candidate in the 2008 presidential election.
Meanwhile, villagers in Yekaterinsky Val are weaving a conspiracy theory closer to home. Many fear that the new dacha war could mark the start of a big land grab by fat cats who covet a piece of their wooded paradise for themselves. Some point to a shadowy businessman named Sergei Veremeyenko, a former banker who told Forbes magazine last year that he was interested in building a golf course and a yacht club in the area. Could he be behind the demolitions? some wonder. Veremeyenko has publicly denied that he has any such interests, but that has not calmed the storm.
As for Mitvol, he promises there will be no construction on the site. Dacha owners have been told that they will have to pay for the demolition out of their own pockets, and that other property could be seized if they do not comply. The court's camo-dudes forced one owner to knock down his house during their last visit. It looks like they'll be back soon, perhaps with reinforcements.