Writers warned they would be soon evicted from the Writers’ House

16.02.2005.

The notice of forthcoming eviction of the Writers’ Union from the premises at 5 Frunze Street is contained at the end of the letter the Governing Board of the Union has recently received from the Presidential Administration. This is a response to six writers, war veterans, having earlier asked for Maxim Tank’s study in the Writers’ House to be converted into a memorial room in honor of the former Chair of the Writers’ Union.

In the Writers’ House the Writers’ Union now has only this study with a reception room, half of the library, and three small rooms for keeping the organization’s documents. The writers do not plan to leave these rooms.

The writers already left several rooms in the Writers’ House after in 1997 the entire house had been transferred by the Chief Executive’s decision into the ownership of the Main Economic Department of the Presidential Office. Now the writers are being forced to leave these rooms because they allegedly have no documents proving they can stay there.

Alies Pashkevich, Chair of the Writers’ Union, still hopes the problem can be resolved. “On 25 February we convene an assembly of the Literary Foundation. Once again we’ll try to join our forces and solve this complicated situation, we’ll try to bring to their attention our opinion that a word of a writer, and all the more so, a word of someone who fought in the war, should not be ignored.”

Apart from eviction of the Writers’ Union from the Writers’ House, the officials threaten suing the writers for utilities’ debt worth 113 million rubles, says Radio Liberty.