City authorities have closed down Moscow's only full-time soup kitchen, prompting dozens of angry -- and hungry -- pensioners, homeless people and refugees to protest in front of the lower house of parliament Thursday.


The soup kitchen, which received much of its funding from U.S. Christian organizations and fed some 500 people a day, was closed by Moscow's sanitation department on Nov. 17.


Kitchen administrators say that city officials pressured the department into closing the kitchen so that the city could sell the space to a wealthy business venture.


"Take a look at any public restroom or market in this city, then look at our soup kitchen and say it's unsanitary," said Daniel Ogan, an employee of the kitchen.


The city listed violations such as an employee operating without a medical certificate, and also announced a rent increase on the space, demanding 40 million rubles ($12,500) in annual rent, or about what a commercial restaurant would pay.


This figure is ten times what the kitchen's owners have been paying.


Kitchen director Alexander Ogorodnikov said the sanitary inspectors had found no violations on their previous visit, just three weeks earlier.


"There is no way for charity organizations like ours to survive under corruption like this," Ogorodnikov said. "The city just wants money, or bribes. And we can't pay. We won't pay."


A spokeswoman for the city's sanitation department confirmed the closure but said she had no further details and could not comment on Ogorodnikov's charges.


Soup kitchen regulars gathered outside the State Duma on Thursday with banners that read: "They Have Taken Away Our Last Hope," and "40 Million Rubles From Beggars -- Disgrace!" The kitchen was established in May 1991 by the Christian Democratic Union, a small political party with ties to the Russian Orthodox Church.


Funded largely by U.S. Christian organizations, it has also attracted the attention of U.S. congressmen. Senator James Jeffords of Vermont and Representative Frank Wolf of Virginia, both Republicans, were among those who volunteered at the kitchen.


The kitchen has served over 400,000 people in its 3 1/2-year history, Ogorodnikov said, including Moscow's growing numbers of homeless, elderly people who cannot afford to eat on their meager pensions and refugees from war-torn former Soviet republics.


"No American authorities would ever get away with this," added Ogorodnikov, a former dissident who spent more than eight years in Soviet prisons for refusing to renounce his Christian activism.


Lidia Baranova, a homeless woman who frequented the soup kitchen, clutched her tattered coat as she berated the city for the closure.


"Who else will help us now?" she asked. "If even charitable organizations cannot afford rent in this city, who can?"