Fight over development of historic Jewish cemetery in Russian city

The Jewish community in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar is worried about the fate of its historic Jewish cemetery, with local authorities planning to erect a commercial building on the grounds of the former burial place. Founded in 1861, the cemetery was used for about a century. In 2003, the Jewish community mobilized to restore the graveyard after it had been desecrated and vandalized numerous times since 1990s. Part of the crypts had been destroyed and some of the monuments had been stolen. Moreover, the plot containing the oldest graves appeared to be beneath a construction site. A nearby fuel station and an equipment store were also built on that territory. Today, a debate is raging between entrepreneurs who are claiming to be the legal owners of the site and planning to develop the land,  and Krasnodar Jews, who are fighting to preserve the historic burial place as it is.