The Prosecutor’s Office versus Druzhba

On August 14, the Oktyabrsky District Court of Krasnodar will consider, within the framework of case 2-3185/2025, a civil claim by the First Deputy Prosecutor of Krasnodar Krai, Alexander Trukhin, to reclaim from “illegal possession” land plots in the Druzhba dacha non-profit partnership on the banks of the Kuban in Krasnodar.

If the prosecutor’s claim is satisfied, about a hundred families will be left on the street. In total, there are more than 120 plots in the DNT, about half of which are built up with houses, most of which have all the permits and are registered with Rosreestr. Now families, many of whom used a mortgage and maternity capital, other social payments to buy land, may lose them.

Lawyers familiar with the prosecutor’s claim consider it unfounded and illegal, since the status of this land has long been determined by decisions of both courts of general jurisdiction and the Arbitration Court. Moreover, the "illegal" actions of the chairman of "Druzhba" Alexander Davydov, according to the supervisory authority, were the subject of an inspection by law enforcement agencies, and the preliminary investigation did not find any elements of a crime in them. Of course, the prosecutor’s office is aware of this. The lawyers representing the interests of the defendants are ready to prove this in court. If, of course, the hearing is objective and unbiased.

Our publication looked into the details of this resonant story.

No violations of the law were found

“The supervisory measures carried out by the regional prosecutor’s office to assess the legality of the formation of land plots on the territory of the DNT Druzhba established facts of the illegal withdrawal from municipal ownership of a land mass with a total area of 102.7 hectares with a cadastral value of more than 1.68 billion rubles,” the supervisory agency’s lawsuit states.

In fact, and this is confirmed by the prosecutor’s office, this story dates back to Soviet times, when the executive committee of the Krasnodar City Council of People’s Deputies in August 1990 transferred 130 hectares of land from the Krasnodarsky state farm in the floodplain of the Kuban River in the area of the 40th Anniversary of Victory Park for collective gardening and vegetable gardening. Hundreds of independent plots were formed here, which were provided to workers of the cotton mill, the design and construction association Krasnodarproektstroy, and participants and disabled veterans of the Great Patriotic War.

In 2008, a legal entity was created – the gardening non-profit partnership “Druzhba”. Aleksandr Davydov became its chairman. Together with the partnership’s assets, he filed a claim with the Oktyabrsky District Court of Krasnodar for recognition of the right of perpetual use of land. In June 2009, the claim was satisfied, but in November, the same court independently overturned this decision and issued a ruling to deny the claim. The precedent itself looks rather strange – without the parties challenging the decision in the appeal, the court of first instance itself overturned it.

Despite this, Davydov submits documents to Rosreestr, where he registers the right to the land for DNT Druzhba. It was this situation that became the formal reason for the prosecutor’s claim - they say that about 15 years ago the right to ownership was registered illegally. 

Vladimir Yamnikov, a lawyer representing the interests of the defendants – residents of the DNT Druzhba – says that subsequently the status of the land in the partnership repeatedly became the subject of legal proceedings and the 2009 decisions were overturned as having no consequences.  

If, as the Krasnodar Territory prosecutor’s office believes, the chairman of Druzhba illegally withdrew land from state ownership, registering it as private, his actions should be classified as particularly large-scale fraud. In this case, the Oktyabrsky Court of Krasnodar had no right to accept the civil claim at all, since the application is subject to consideration within the framework of criminal law.

By the way, the arguments of the supervisory authority about the "illegal" registration of the property right were already the subject of an investigation within the framework of case No. 15800079 initiated in 2015. On September 28, 2023, the Crime Investigation Department of the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Krasnodar issued Resolution No. 15800079 to terminate the criminal case due to the absence of a crime, since Davydov’s submission of documents for registration was based on legal decisions of the authorities. As part of the supervision, the prosecutor’s office of the Central District of Krasnodar recognized this termination of the criminal case as legal and justified. Moreover, it was voiced at a meeting of the Oktyabrsky District Court of Krasnodar in case No. 3/10-606/23 on November 10, 2023, where the prosecutor’s office also had no questions about its legality. By the appellate ruling of the Krasnodar Regional Court dated January 17, 2024, the ruling was left unchanged.

By the decision of the Oktyabrsky Court of Krasnodar on October 18, 2024, in case No. N3/10-263/2024, the complaint of the mayor’s office was considered in the order of judicial review, containing the same circumstances that were stated by the prosecutor in the claim. The court found the decision to terminate the criminal case justified. On December 13, 2024, by the appellate decision of the Krasnodar Regional Court, this decision was left unchanged, and on March 18, 2025, the Fourth Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction refused the representative of the mayor’s office to transfer the cassation appeal, finally approving this decision.

It turns out that the prosecutor’s office is seeking a new review of circumstances that have been repeatedly reviewed by both law enforcement agencies and the courts. This contradicts elementary legal norms.

Arbitration is on the side of the citizens

On June 10, 2012, the Oktyabrsky Court of Krasnodar, in civil case No. 1791/2012, recognized the administration’s refusal to grant the partnership ownership of a land plot as illegal and established the ownership right of DNT Druzhba to the plot with cadastral number 23:43:03 08035:41. Thus, DNT was recognized as the legal owner, basing its ownership on the title. The mayor’s office does not have a title to the disputed land plot. 

This is confirmed by the Arbitration Court of Krasnodar Krai, which, in case No. A32-22673/2012, rejected the Krasnodar administration’s claim to reclaim a land plot. Like the decision of the Oktyabrsky District Court, it has entered into legal force.

“At the same time, the decision of the Oktyabrsky District Court of Krasnodar from 2012 gave a detailed assessment of the second argument of the current claim of the prosecutor regarding the legality of the reorganization of the partnership and the validity of the minutes of the general meetings of the participants of the partnership on the reorganization of the participants, which were allegedly completed by other persons,” says the defendants’ response to the claim of the regional prosecutor’s office.

Lawyer Vladimir Yamnikov emphasizes an important fact: the management of the partnership did not appropriate the land for itself, registering it under dummy affiliated companies and did not sell the plots to people at commercial value. But it distributed them to the owners free of charge, just as it received it from the administration free of charge. Subsequently, some owners sold their plots, the new owners acquired them on completely legal and legal grounds.

Over almost 15 years, there were those who did not agree with the chairman’s actions. They contacted the prosecutor’s office and other supervisory authorities, but numerous inspections did not find any violations, continues lawyer Vladimir Yamnikov. Therefore, the prosecutor’s argument that the situation with the DNT Druzhba became known to the agency only in the spring of 2025 seems, in his opinion, far-fetched and implausible.

New raiders?

"The prosecutor’s office does not pay attention to the decisions made and entered into legal force by both the courts of general jurisdiction and the Arbitration Court. As a lawyer, I have a question - do the authors of the claim really have a higher legal education? This is very similar to the raider takeovers of the 90s and early 2000s, when no attention was paid to the legal grounds," says Vladimir Yamnikov, a representative of the defendants.

He reminds us that people have legally owned and managed these plots for more than ten years. Many of them were subsequently sold, including using mortgages and maternity capital. Among the new owners are large families, people with disabilities, participants in a special military operation, including those awarded high state awards. Are they now fighting on the front lines to be deprived of their only home? - the respondents ask rhetorically.

"The decisions of courts of general jurisdiction and arbitration courts that have entered into legal force have already considered the same arguments that the prosecutor states in this claim and found them unfounded. The prosecutor has not presented evidence refuting the conclusions established within the framework of the above-mentioned cases; there are no grounds for excluding them from the established circumstances. The prosecutor’s claim is essentially aimed at overcoming judicial acts that have entered into legal force, which violates the principle of the binding nature of decisions," the Krasnodar Territory Prosecutor’s Office said in its response to the claim.

If the Oktyabrsky District Court of Krasnodar satisfies the prosecutor’s claim, a dangerous precedent will be created - all the plots were once state property and only in the 1999s and early 2000s did they become private property. Thus, the department will be able to "learn" about this unexpectedly for the new owners and, in the interests of "an indefinite circle of persons", demand that the land be returned to municipal ownership. And what to do with the houses that were built and inhabited over the past many years? The plots, sometimes more than once, have changed owners - the current owners acquired them on absolutely legal grounds, not suspecting the far-reaching plans of the Krasnodar Territory prosecutor’s office.

The defendants - let us recall that we are talking about large families, families of SVO participants, and people with disabilities - ask not to ignore their arguments based on the law and previously issued court decisions. Otherwise, more than a hundred Krasnodar families will be left on the street.