Fire-damaged farm in a Novaya Sloboda village

Burnt down farm in the village of Novaya Sloboda (Putivl region, Sumy Oblast) on Tuesday, on November, 6, 2007 Farm, which served as feedstuff store, was burned out with the supplies of hay for the winter in night from 2 to November, 3, 2007. According to the version of militia, this intentional arson is a revenge to the leaseholder for unpaid in right time shares of properties. Current problems at most arose up with 1996, when after disintegration of collective farms the section of a collective farm property took place on shares. Current problems at most arose up with 1996, when after disintegration of collective farms the section of a collective farm property took place on shares. People got land and properties certificates, which consisted of a few hectares of land, agricultural technique and live-stock. But deep economic crisis, which followed after the disintegration of USSR, an unpreparedness of farmers and state bodies to the new economic relations brought poverty to the village people and today countrymen are forced to pass the shares in a lease to private agricultural enterprises, to the joint-stock companies and farmers, to comings on changing collective farms, for tiny sums (the annual lease of 1 ha of land costs to 200 UAH). However not always the financial terms of this lease businessmen are observed, and the dwellers of village try to decide the problem of payment of lease independently, sometimes taking away back property, which belongs to them, by force. The similar methods of solving the conflict quite often result in criminal consequences. Photo by Vladimir Lyakh / UNIAN