FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway

The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief

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Thursday 18 May 2006
RUSSIA: SOCHI MUSLIMS WITHOUT MOSQUE, CATHOLICS HOPE FOR CHAPEL

In the Black Sea town of Sochi, close to the Georgian border, the
authorities have persistently denied the Yasin Muslim community permission
to construct a mosque, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The community has
been trying to find a suitable site for 10 years but, “whenever I find
somewhere, the [city] architectural department says that it’s already
sold, obstructed by pipes, or something else,” Ravza Ramazanova, the
organisation’s chair, told Forum 18. The community’s roughly 70
worshippers currently use three cramped cellar rooms – which Forum 18 has
seen – to pray and study. Similarly, local Catholic priest Fr Dariusz
Jagodzinski hopes that Sochi’s bid to host the Winter Olympics in 2014
will assist plans for the construction of a Catholic chapel in the nearby
town of Adler. This, he explained to Forum 18, was how the Catholic church
in Sochi was built from 1995-97: “They were hoping to hold the Winter
Olympics here in 2002.” Forum 18 noted that the Russian Orthodox Church,
the Armenian Apostolic Church, Baptists, Pentecostals, Jews and the New
Apostolic Church all have prominent houses of worship in the Sochi area.

RUSSIA: SOCHI MUSLIMS WITHOUT MOSQUE, CATHOLICS HOPE FOR CHAPEL

By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <;

The authorities in the Black Sea coastal town of Sochi, close to the
border with Georgia, have persistently denied the Yasin Muslim community
permission to construct a mosque, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Ravza
Ramazanova, who chairs the organisation, showed Forum 18 the three cramped
cellar rooms where its approximately 70 worshippers are obliged to pray and
study. “I’m so tired of writing letters – whole files – it just drags on
and on,” she told Forum 18 on 11 April, adding that, although she has
identified some 20 possible construction sites over the ten years since
her organisation was registered, “whenever I find somewhere, the [city]
architectural department says that it’s already sold, obstructed by pipes,
or something else.”

In one 2002 reply to Yasin, Krasnodar region’s Department for Relations
with Social Organisations explained that, in the absence of an area in
Sochi populated largely by those “oriented towards the Muslim faith,”
allocation of land must be accompanied by a survey of public opinion in
the area where the mosque would be situated “so as to avoid conflict
situations” (see F18News 7 December 2004
< e_id=470>).

In fact, according to Ramazanova, there are positive community relations
in Sochi, with members of the local Tree of Friendship nationalities
society – “Estonians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Adygeis, Armenians,
Georgians, Greeks” – all supporting her campaign for a mosque. While a
prominent public figure – she showed Forum 18 numerous photographs of
herself with various local and national politicians, including Moscow
mayor Yuri Luzhkov and parliamentary speaker Boris Gryzlov – Ramazanova
said that even an appeal to the local authorities on her behalf by
Tatarstan president Mintimer Shaimiyev had failed to yield any result.

Showing Forum 18 a copy of her latest – unanswered – 27 March 2006 letter
to Sochi mayor Viktor Kolodyazhny, Ramazanova said that she still retains
some hope, however. “The town has got much cleaner since he became mayor
two years ago – I think he’ll get around to us at some point.” The letter
reminds Kolodyazhny that he promised, at a 30 November 2005 Tree of
Friendship meeting, to review the issue of identifying a construction site
for the Muslim community by the end of the same year.

In the meantime, as Ramazanova complained to Forum 18, “all this stops me
from working – how are the young supposed to learn their religion, to
understand that God sees everything so they shouldn’t drink or steal –
without a mosque?” She pointed out that there is currently no fitting
place for Muslims in the area – Russia’s most popular holiday destination
– to come for naming or burial rites: “When the father of a Tatar family
here on holiday died, they had to come to this cellar!”

The telephone of Sochi administration’s press secretary Oksana Velichkina
went unanswered on 17 and 18 May, as did that of the city’s department
dealing with law enforcement agencies, religious and social organisations,
Cossacks and international affairs.

Similarly to Ravza Ramazanova, local Catholic priest Fr Dariusz
Jagodzinski is hoping that Sochi’s bid to host the Winter Olympics in 2014
will assist plans for the construction of a chapel by his 80-strong parish
of the Cappadocian Fathers in Adler, a town ten minutes’ drive along the
coast south of Sochi but coming under its municipal authority. This, he
explained to Forum 18 on 11 April, was how the Catholic church of SS
Apostles Thaddeus and Simon was built in Sochi from 1995-97: “They were
hoping to hold the Winter Olympics here in 2002.” Currently, however, the
Adler parish is fighting court cases against ten different parties
claiming to have been promised the same 700-square-metre plot of land
already purchased by the Catholics for 25,000 US Dollars [675,750 Russian
Roubles, 153,000 Norwegian Kroner, or 19,550 Euros], said Fr Dariusz, “but
we have the official documents.”

According to Fr Dariusz, the Adler chapel – while apparently close to
Sochi – is sorely needed. He pointed out that some parishioners currently
spend all day travelling to and from Sunday Mass, and that even the 100
Rouble [23 Norwegian Kroner, 3 Euros, or 4 US Dollars] single fare to
Sochi from nearby towns is too much for a household where the monthly wage
is 1,500 Roubles [340 Norwegian Kroner, 43 Euros, or 55 US Dollars].

Forum 18 noted that the Russian Orthodox Church, the Armenian Apostolic
Church, Baptists, Pentecostals, Jews and the New Apostolic Church all have
prominent houses of worship in the Sochi area.

For more on the problems experienced by religious organisations in
securing worship premises, see F18News 7 December 2004
< e_id=470>, 19 August 2005
< e_id=633>, 24 August 2005
< e_id=637> and 30 August 2005
< e_id=639>. (END)

For a personal commentary by an Old Believer about continuing denial of
equality to Russia’s religious minorities see F18News
< icle_id=570>

For more background see Forum 18’s Russia religious freedom survey at
< id=509>

A printer-friendly map of Russia is available at
< s/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=russi >
(END)

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