Residents of Sovetskaya Street do not want to say goodbye to it

A new massive sandal matures, or better to say, already there is in Baku. At this time the residents of the famous Sovetskaya Street have risen. Now it is called Narimanov Street, but it seems none of them knows that.

We should clarify: in fact, along with Sovetskaya Street, for two years will be demolished the hundreds of streets, alleys and dead ends, as well as other streets near Sovetskaya. Baku knows that pronouncing the name of this old street, we have a view of the entire large array of old buildings in the city center.

Baku authorities announced that about 10,000 houses will be demolished on this street and the neighboring old quarters. Owners will be given compensation in the amount of fifteen thousand manats per square meter (consider: the same amount in euros) for institutionalized living space, 700 manat per square meter for bathrooms and 300 manat per square meter in the yard.

February 16 ( according to other sources 17th ) residents of the Baku district will gather for a rally at School N173. Propagation has started in social networks - they ask residents of other old quarters of Baku, also awaiting demolition, to join the action.

The problem is ambiguous. On the one hand , Baku is rapidly growing, and narrow, often very dirty blocks in the city center are not good. We need wide roads for easing the traffic currently choking in traffic jams. Also today, in the XXI century the Bakuvians should not live in single-storey rickety huts, in which the WC is in the yard, rats run under the house and cars park and go straight before the front door.

But the residents of older neighborhoods do not want to leave, insisting that the compensation offered to them is little to buy housing in the downtown, so they will not be able to buy anything for that. But they do not want to live in the suburbs.

The residents also appeal to the law, according to which the amount of compensation for demolished housing is defined in the agreement between the two parties. The power refers to another law, expressly saying that the executive can demolish emergency home without the consent of the tenants, with the issue of compensation. The fact that all the houses in the area will be named emergency by the court is doubtless for me. Usually what happens if a homeowner persists, insisting on greater amount of compensation, is that the developer sues and quickly receives a document about the emergency state of the building. Next appears an excavator and a police patrol ...

The main question is what to choose. Should we choose urban renewal or satisfying the desire of the inhabitants, even if the desire to live among rats is absurd?

 P.S. The site editor asked me if I was not mistaken reporting on 10 thousand houses, which seems too much for this array. But I shot the area from the 16th floor of a building in Sovetskaya Street . By the way , I live on this street, but in a five-storey Stalin building, so I will not be evicted. At least, I think so...

Kamal Ali

ANN.Az