Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
London Times
March 15, 2008 By Tony Halpin, in Moscow
It owns land equivalent to an area the size of Greece and once housed four million soldiers in thousands of garrison towns, but Russia’s much-reduced military is selling off property that it no longer needs to raise money to build homes for soldiers and their families.
The Defence Ministry in Moscow plans to auction entire towns to cut accommodation waiting lists.
The first sale of 20 lots is expected to take place on April 8. Izvestia reported that they included “fabulous mansions and guest houses, dilapidated garrison towns, unused shooting ranges and vast tracts of neglected land, on which no human has set foot for years”.
Properties due to go under the hammer include military posts on Moscow’s exclusive Rublevskoe highway, lined with mansions belonging to Russia’s billionaire class and political elite.
President Putin appointed Anatoly Serdyukov, a former tax inspector with no military background, as Defence Minister last year with a brief to modernise its management. Mr Serdyukov ordered the sell-off after finding that the army owned property worth an estimated £6.2 billion. It includes almost 136,000 sq km (52,500 sq miles) of land and 7,640 garrison towns comprising more than 175,000 buildings.
The sale aims to raise tens of millions of pounds to build accommodation for the 122,400 military families that are said to be waiting for homes. Retiring officers are entitled by law to an apartment from the State in recognition of their service.
“It currently takes a retired serviceman about six to seven years [instead of the statutory three months] to vacate his temporarily occupied official accommodation facilities and move to a permanent housing space he is entitled to by law,” the Defence Ministry said. “In all, to resolve the housing shortage problem and make sure that every serviceman has a roof above his head as long as he stays in the ranks, the Armed Forces need as many as 450,000 official apartments.
“By 2012-15 the State plans to do away with the housing shortages and guarantee allocation of service housing to military personnel within one month.”
The Russian Army has shrunk dramatically from 4 million to 1.1 million since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. It is also struggling to fulfill plans to move from conscription to a professional army, which requires drastically improved living conditions to persuade people to join up. The Defence Ministry has acknowledged that most of the professional recruits so far “comprise people who have, for various reasons, failed to fulfil themselves in civil life”.
While many senior military figures enjoy access to palatial mansions, ordinary Russian soldiers often endure squalid living conditions. Improved housing is vital if Russia is to maintain troop numbers against the background of a declining population and widespread draft-dodging. About 90 per cent of young men avoid conscription, mainly out of fear of brutal bullying. Mr Putin has cut the term of service from two years to 12 months in an effort to make the army more attractive.
Military properties have gone on the market before. In 2006 Lord Foster of Thames Bank was commissioned to redevelop New Holland Island in St Petersburg, a former secret military zone that was turned over to city authorities in 2004 and sold to developers. The city’s property fund signed an agreement with the Defence Ministry to sell 18 military properties in prime locations for redevelopment, including vacant land, storage facilities and rundown barracks.
March 15, 2008 By Tony Halpin, in Moscow
It owns land equivalent to an area the size of Greece and once housed four million soldiers in thousands of garrison towns, but Russia’s much-reduced military is selling off property that it no longer needs to raise money to build homes for soldiers and their families.
The Defence Ministry in Moscow plans to auction entire towns to cut accommodation waiting lists.
The first sale of 20 lots is expected to take place on April 8. Izvestia reported that they included “fabulous mansions and guest houses, dilapidated garrison towns, unused shooting ranges and vast tracts of neglected land, on which no human has set foot for years”.
Properties due to go under the hammer include military posts on Moscow’s exclusive Rublevskoe highway, lined with mansions belonging to Russia’s billionaire class and political elite.
President Putin appointed Anatoly Serdyukov, a former tax inspector with no military background, as Defence Minister last year with a brief to modernise its management. Mr Serdyukov ordered the sell-off after finding that the army owned property worth an estimated £6.2 billion. It includes almost 136,000 sq km (52,500 sq miles) of land and 7,640 garrison towns comprising more than 175,000 buildings.
The sale aims to raise tens of millions of pounds to build accommodation for the 122,400 military families that are said to be waiting for homes. Retiring officers are entitled by law to an apartment from the State in recognition of their service.
“It currently takes a retired serviceman about six to seven years [instead of the statutory three months] to vacate his temporarily occupied official accommodation facilities and move to a permanent housing space he is entitled to by law,” the Defence Ministry said. “In all, to resolve the housing shortage problem and make sure that every serviceman has a roof above his head as long as he stays in the ranks, the Armed Forces need as many as 450,000 official apartments.
“By 2012-15 the State plans to do away with the housing shortages and guarantee allocation of service housing to military personnel within one month.”
The Russian Army has shrunk dramatically from 4 million to 1.1 million since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. It is also struggling to fulfill plans to move from conscription to a professional army, which requires drastically improved living conditions to persuade people to join up. The Defence Ministry has acknowledged that most of the professional recruits so far “comprise people who have, for various reasons, failed to fulfil themselves in civil life”.
While many senior military figures enjoy access to palatial mansions, ordinary Russian soldiers often endure squalid living conditions. Improved housing is vital if Russia is to maintain troop numbers against the background of a declining population and widespread draft-dodging. About 90 per cent of young men avoid conscription, mainly out of fear of brutal bullying. Mr Putin has cut the term of service from two years to 12 months in an effort to make the army more attractive.
Military properties have gone on the market before. In 2006 Lord Foster of Thames Bank was commissioned to redevelop New Holland Island in St Petersburg, a former secret military zone that was turned over to city authorities in 2004 and sold to developers. The city’s property fund signed an agreement with the Defence Ministry to sell 18 military properties in prime locations for redevelopment, including vacant land, storage facilities and rundown barracks.