https://realty.newsru.com/article/26dec2017/iegov_med
(The following article is translated using google translate)
The building selected in "Jehovah's Witnesses" in St. Petersburg will be given to scientists
December 26, 2017 publication time: 09:42In a building selected from a banned organization in Russia, "Jehovah's Witnesses", will soon be able to read scientific lectures. The city authorities will give the former site for worship to the medical research center named after VA Almazov. The building on Kolomyazhsky Prospekt is planned to be used as a place for conducting educational programs. In the building there is a huge cult hall and the largest toilet in St. Petersburg.
"There is a pilot project according to which in accordance with the President's decree on the basis of the building on Kolomyazhsky Avenue, 21 it is planned to organize a scientific and educational platform, " the medical center told Interfax .
According to the website of "Jehovah's Witnesses" in Russia, the center for holding religious meetings on Kolomyazhsky Avenue, 21 opened in September 1999. The building was built according to the project of the Finnish architect Helenios Osmo Ilmari. The cult hall with an area of more than 1.4 thousand square meters. meters in the days of congresses could hold 1,6 thousand people. According to the site, the center has the largest toilet in the city, equipped, in particular, for people with disabilities. Also ramps for the disabled are equipped with an entrance to the building, and in the very center there are elevators.
An informed source told Interfax that the Russian representative office of Jehovah's Witnesses had 55 real estate properties in St. Petersburg, the total cadastral value of which exceeds 2.1 billion rubles. The total area of objects is about 190 thousand square meters. meters.
"The court turned 16 objects previously belonging to the religious organization in the village of Solnechnoye in the village of Solnechnoye.The interested authorities will in the future order to draw up the necessary documents through the Federal Property Management Agency and the Ministry of Justice of Russia, which originally filed a lawsuit on the prohibition of the activities of the "Jehovah's Witnesses" in Russia.For each facility, a decision will be made about its further use, "the agency's interlocutor explained.
Recall that in early December, the Sestroretsky Court of St. Petersburg seized 16 real estate assets of "Jehovah's Witnesses", including a former pioneer camp of 10 hectares with many buildings. The cadastral value of all facilities is 880 million rubles, but the market value of buildings may reach 2 billion rubles. The religious organization was accused of transferring property to the US legal entity under the gift agreement, but continued to use these buildings even after the ban on activities in Russia.
Let's remind that in the summer the Ministry of Justice of Russia included the religious organization "Management Center of" Jehovah's Witnesses "in Russia" and 395 of its branches in the list of banned organizations liquidated for extremism.