Since the beginning of the reconstruction of the Christ the Savior Cathedral in 1994, the city has been rife with reports that the city government is forcing businessmen to make donations for the grandiose project.
The first evidence of such a campaign emerged this week when the Izvestia newspaper published an apparently City Hall-authorized document calling for property officials to "attract" 12.25 million rubles ($385,000) toward the cathedral over the first three months of the year. The document, a copy of which was provided to The Moscow Times by Izvestia, was signed by Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov's first deputy, Oleg Tolkachyov, who heads the city's property department.
The document instructs the property officials to send the money to the Christ the Savior Cathedral Foundation, the city-administered charity that funded the $500 million reconstruction. The cathedral officially opened in 2000.
The Moscow Times, Jan. 15, 2003 [âñÿ ñòàòüÿ]
