On Sunday, March 7, 2010, Moscow riot police and demolition workers tore down my home to make way for a parking lot.
Three generations of my family have lived here as squatters since the 1930s. My 104-year-old great-grandmother was one of the first inhabitants of the house, where she was registered in 1937.
Though we have asked the authorities to recognize our legitimate right to dwell in the house, we have been constantly and unjustly thwarted by the Courts.
On the night of January 2nd, 2010, before the Russian Supreme Court session of March 15, 2010 in which a decision was to be made on the case, the house inexplicably caught fire and was severely damaged.
Firefighters who arrived at the scene of the disaster refused to extinguish the flames, stating that they were given orders not to save the house.
On Sunday, March 7, 2010, the Moscow authorities chose to play out the final act in their campaign to evict our families. Police and military were present in number.
While physically abusing and intimidating protesters, they prevented journalists from filming the incident and, importantly, from documenting illegal police misconduct while enforcing an equally illegal decision of demolition and eviction.
More than one protester received death threats from the police. Two female protesters were hospitalized with head injuries, including my sister, and about 7 were detained.
The house was home to six families and a museum dedicated to its more famous residents and visitors, including Venedikt Yerofeyev, Ivan Bunin, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Paul Khlebnikov, and many others.
