Valentin Gorshenin, RT Russian
For years now, the little town of Lyubertsy, just outside of Moscow, has been the unlikely setting for an international legal battle over the fate of a former Soviet factory, which local residents say is blighting their lives.
RT talked to law enforcement officials, lawyers and the town’s mayor to unravel the mystery of how Adolf Gast, a Swiss national, has been able to build a booming business on the site of the A. V. Ukhtomsky Agricultural Machinery Plant, despite reported irregularities in the paperwork and dozens of court injunctions against it. The local administration is working to take the premises back under its control, and it says there is no lease on the land the buildings stand on, with Gast said to owe hundreds of millions of rubles for its use. Despite that, a hive of businesses, offices, moderately-priced hostels, and overnight shelters for migrants have sprung up, apparently in violation of fire safety requirements, bringing cash in to his dilapidated empire.