Krasnodar officials and repressed persons will be judged by the Supreme Court
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The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is considering a dispute between victims of Soviet repression and Krasnodar officials. The Panaetidi family, expelled on ethnic grounds in the 1940s, are seeking compensation for the housing they lost. The regional courts agreed with their demands, but the regional Ministry of Social Development refuses to pay. Officials believe that in order to receive compensation it is necessary to live in those villages where “repressions were applied” to the Panaetidi family. Lawyers point out that this requirement is contrary to logic and the law.
Earlier, Kommersant spoke in detail about the case of the Panaetidi family. A resident of the Kuban village of Severskaya, Ivan Panaetidi was a teenager when he and his parents were repressed on ethnic grounds: in 1942, the Black Sea Greeks were deported to the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan. In exile, Ivan Panaetidi married fellow countrywoman Sofya Tilkeridi, expelled from the village of Ilskaya; they had four children. After Stalin’s death, restrictions on special settlers began to be lifted, but the Panaetidi family was able to return to Russia only in the 1990s – they settled in Novorossiysk. At the same time, the “children of the Gulag” Anna, Olga, Nadezhda and Vasily Panaetidi were recognized as victims of political repression with the right to rehabilitation. The law guaranteed them compensation for lost property – the right to receive free housing in the region from which their parents were expelled.
In 2020, the Panaetidi family applied to the administration of the Seversky district of the Krasnodar Territory with an application to register as those in need of housing. After numerous refusals and legal proceedings, in 2022 they were nevertheless included in the preferential housing queue. However, the municipality was not able to purchase the property. “The administration of the Seversky district reported that over the past 20 years, none of the rehabilitated people in the region have been provided with housing,” said lawyer Ivan Kalgin, representing the interests of the rehabilitated, in an interview with Kommersant. The Panaetidi family decided to exercise the right to replace their housing with monetary compensation – this norm was established by the decree of the Kuban governor of November 16, 2015.
In February 2023, the Primorsky Court of Novorossiysk ordered the regional Ministry of Labor and Social Development to include the Panaetidi family in the list of citizens entitled to payment. This decision was challenged by the ministry in the appellate and cassation instances, but remained in force. In February 2024, the Ministry of Social Development of the Krasnodar Territory sent a cassation appeal to the RF Armed Forces. After this, the case was sent to Moscow and is now being considered by a judge of the Supreme Court.
In the complaint (available to Kommersant), the ministry called “illegal and unfounded” court decisions to include the Panaetidi family in the list of citizens entitled to payments for the purchase of housing. Officials refer to the decree of the governor of the Krasnodar region issued in 2011 on “social support measures to provide rehabilitated persons with housing at the expense of the regional budget.” It says that “a one-time cash payment for the purchase of residential property” is due to children of rehabilitated people who “arrived to live in the settlements of the Krasnodar Territory where their parents lived before the repression was applied to them.” From this, officials conclude: in order to receive compensation, you must live in the villages of Ilskaya or Severskaya.
Lawyer Ivan Kalgin does not agree with this approach. He recalls the ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation from 2019: all “children of the Gulag” must be accepted for housing registration in their native places “without any conditions” – that is, without registration or registration. However, the Kuban Ministry of Social Development stated in the complaint that the Constitutional Court’s conclusion “is due to the lack of clear legal regulation at the federal level of the procedure for registering rehabilitated persons and members of their families as those in need of residential premises.” Officials also indicated that by this resolution the Constitutional Court ordered the State Duma to develop a uniform procedure for the entire country to provide “children of the Gulag” with housing. As Kommersant has repeatedly written, the relevant bill was frozen after the first reading.
“The Ministry states that in order to receive payment, those repressed must register in the village of Severskaya or in the village of Ilskaya, where they do not have any housing. That is, it establishes additional obstacles to the realization by rehabilitated persons of the right to housing. This directly contradicts the legal position of the Constitutional Court,” says Ivan Kalgin. “In fact, the Ministry of Social Development turns the resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation upside down.” Mr. Kalgin notes that the Constitutional Court’s resolution was adopted precisely “to remove such unconstitutional restrictions.” He hopes that the Supreme Court will reject the complaint from the Ministry of Social Development and those repressed will be able to achieve “real restoration of the right to housing.”
“The Constitutional Court indicated that in order to receive housing, it is enough for those rehabilitated to declare their intention to return to the previous place of residence of their families,” commented lawyer Grigory Vaypan, who dealt with the complaint of the “children of the Gulag” to the Constitutional Court, commented on the case. “According to this logic, the payment for the purchase of housing should be provided to the Panaetidi family immediately. Otherwise, a vicious circle results: in order to exercise the right of return, those rehabilitated are required to first return – and at their own expense.”
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