A senior Moscow lawmaker said Wednesday that Cherkizovsky Market might never reopen and its territory might be used to construct apartment buildings.
“The shutdown of the market is not only a gift for all citizens of the eastern Moscow district, but it was also a long-term fight,” Moscow City Duma Deputy Speaker Andrei Metelsky said, Interfax reported.
He said the 300 hectares occupied by Cherkizovsky, Eastern Europe’s largest market, might be used for municipal housing.
Cherkizovsky, which employed tens of thousands of people, was closed June 29 after federal inspectors found sanitary and fire violations there.
The closure followed a demand by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in early June for “convictions” in connection with the September seizure of $2 billion in goods at the market that purportedly had been smuggled from China.
Unemployed market workers, meanwhile, submitted an appeal to President Dmitry Medvedev to protest the closure. The appeal was accepted by the presidential administration, which promised to examine it, Itar-Tass reported
Also Wednesday, several dozen workers tried to stage an unsanctioned protest on Staraya Ploshchad near the Kitai Gorod metro station but were stopped by police, Itar-Tass said.
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