A group of defrauded real estate investors, holding a hunger strike in one of the buildings on Moscow's Malaya Polyanka street, received unexpected backing. The well-known art gallery owner and occasional spin-doctor Marat Guelman voiced his support and pledged assistance on Tuesday. The move prompted some observers to suspect that the strike was in fact organized by people close to the United Russia party, which Guelman had associated with in the past.

Currently, the hunger strikes are being conducted in three Russian cities: Moscow, Ulyanovsk, and Novosibirsk. In Moscow, the first group of protestors holed up inside an office building in the north-western district of Tushino, while the second chose Malaya Polyanka, closer to the city's center. The participants consist of residents of the Moscow Region and Voronezh. All claim to have been defrauded by the Social Initiative & Co, a private company that cheated tens of thousands of Russians out of over $500 million in 2003-2005 by promising them affordable new housing. The company failed to honor the agreements.

Although some Russian newspapers reported that Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov has met with the protestors, their press secretary Boris Kosarev refuted the report, saying that the papers were the only place where the participants heard about it.

This is by no means the first hunger strike or mass protest by investors who lost their savings through fraudulent construction companies, due to flaws in legislation and improper actions of municipal or regional authorities. Last November about 50 people went on a hunger strike, encamping in an unfinished building in central Moscow. In May 2006, protestors clashed with riot police after the authorities attempted to disperse their unauthorized rally outside the government headquarters in Moscow.

Meanwhile, a court in Saratov region last week jailed the head of a construction firm for similar fraud. This precedent may a signal of good news for defrauded investors, long disheartened by Russian courts. The 48-year-old Igor Kolechnichenko, CEO of the Uraganzhilstroy company, was sentenced to four years in prison for conducting business activities without a license, fraud, and abuse of his position for unlawful profit.

The fraud charge included selling the same apartments to different customers, as well as cheating 48 investors out of more than 25 million rubles in shares. 
By Oleg Liakhovich