About 100 farmers from nine districts in Russia's southern Krasnodar region have announced that they intend to take part in a tractor run to Moscow, the Caucasian Knot online newspaper reported Thursday.
Starting on March 28 from Ust-Labinsk, one of the region's towns, the purpose of the trip is to “make President Vladimir Putin aware of the years of illegal seizure of land and violation of the rights of farmers” by private businessmen in the region.
“Our goal is to attract attention to the problem,” regional farmer and an organizer of the protest Oleg Petrov told Caucasian Knot.
“[The businessmen] do not give us work, we threatened them with legal action. People come from Moscow with lots of money, buy the land and then dissolve the rent agreements. Authorities try to help us, but the courts all rule against us,” he said.
Petrov added that farmers decided to take action “out of despair.”
