Almost six years have passed since Igor Gulyev, a 22-year-old entrepreneur at the time, bought a two-room apartment in a soon-to-be-completed house in Yubileiny, a town in the Moscow region.
Gulyev is still waiting for his apartment to be finished, but the construction has been stalled since 2005. He had to close his business because he was exhausted by legal squabbles with the developers.
Two months ago, Gulyev launched Odnodolshiki.ru, the first social network for so-called "cheated homebuyers," allowing those who have invested into apartment buildings that have not yet materialized to receive advice and discuss ways of solving their problems.
"I had the idea to create a web site where one can upload pictures and videos of meetings, and place articles that no one will delete," Gulyev told The Moscow Times.
The cheated homebuyers first appeared on the Russian real estate market in 2004 after many prospective apartment buyers found that construction on their future apartment buildings, into which they had invested a lot of money, had been halted because of developer bankruptcy and other reasons.
Odnodolshiki.ru, whose name refers to the wildly popular social network Odnoklassniki.ru, currently has about 770 registered users and more than 2,500 unregistered users, and 300 to 400 people visit the web site daily, Gulyev said.
Users join the community by creating an account, which allows them to add friends, post comments, upload pictures and videos, and create their own blogs.
A number of web sites for cheated homebuyers already exist, including Postroim.com, launched by the United Russia's working group to protect the rights of cheated homebuyers, and Help.su, created by A Just Russia.
The commercial web site Vdolevke.ru allows current and future apartments owners to find neighbors and chat.
Odnodolshiki.ru has generated resistance, however, from certain corners.
Gulyev said United Russia did not like his web site and that the party’s working group had sent him a letter declaring the social network an ineffective project.
Most homebuyers are concerned with their own problems, and "any activity to unite investors somehow usually fails," said the letter, published on Odnodolshiki.ru.
"As far as homebuyers’ communication is concerned, such web sites already exist, for example, Vdolevke.ru. It has a broader category for communication, and it's more viable than a portal meant for cheated investors only," it said.
Viktoria Penkova, a member of the United Russia's working group for cheated homebuyers, admitted that Odnodolshiki.ru is a legitimate project, but said it isn't making constructive suggestions.
"This web site would be more useful if people shared experience — how not to get into such trouble — and suggested certain measures to solve the problem," she said.
Alexander Khinstein, head of United Russia's working group for cheated homebuyers, said earlier this month that a total of 150 houses on which construction had stalled had been completed in Russia last year, providing new housing for 14,000 families.
Cheated homebuyers in the Moscow region will have their apartments completed this year, Vladimir Zhidkin, deputy head of the Moscow regional government, told RIA-Novosti last week.
Alexander Kosovan, head of City Hall's construction department, said Friday that the last house for cheated homebuyers in Moscow had been completed.
"We think that the problem of cheated investors has been solved," Kosovan said.
Users of Odnodolshiki.ru believe that their project “shows a different reality” from the one that authorities are pushing.
A list compiled by Odnodolshiki.ru names 11 construction projects that are still on hold in Moscow. It also mentions stalled projects in the Moscow region and cities such as Rostov-on-Don, Tyumen, Sochi and Samara.
The site has a list of 19,946 cheated households from all over Russia and provides information on unreliable developers, including the amount of money collected in advance payments by each firm.
A post on Odnodolshiki.ru said the lists would be attached to the claim that users of the network plan to file with the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General's Office.
"Authorities don't work with cheated homebuyers, they only say they do," Gulyev said.
"It looks like all other web sites for cheated homebuyers have been created to give the impression that something is being done," he said.
Samara resident Ilya Sidelnikov registered on the site about three weeks ago, but said he wasn't an active user of Odnodolshiki.ru. He visits the web site for news and for tracking prosecution of unreliable developers by local authorities.
Sidelnikov, 34, an engineer in a development firm, bought an apartment in a house for which only the foundation laid in 2008, just before the economic crisis hit.
The construction hasn't progressed since 2008, and the developer has declared bankruptcy but promises to resume construction, Sidelnikov said.
"I will have to pay all of my wages to cover a mortgage loan over the next 15 years," said Sidelnikov, who is currently living in his parents' apartment with his wife and daughter.