ST. PETERSBURG? — St. Petersburg businessmen forced out of the city’s Khasansky Market will refuse to sign a much-publicized agreement with City Hall, the market’s council of business owners said this week.
The agreement had been presented as guaranteeing the businessmen trading space in the yet-to-be-built trade complex planned to replace the market, the council said. But the prospective tenants say the document would force them out of their current shops and only let them return under commercial rates.
The confrontation between City Hall, which wants to use the land for a new, city-owned trade complex, and the businessmen, who have invested in infrastructure and communication and do not want to leave the market, has lasted for years. The traders say the city authorities have used a range of tactics to drive them out of the premises, including smear campaigns in City Hall-controlled media, state inspections, fines, police raids, criminal cases and beatings.
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