The authorities of the Komi Republic approved a five-year demolition program for unsafe housing in 2025, but in Syktyvkar it covers only 47 buildings out of 790 officially recognized unsafe barracks. According to the project Vetër, the city has about 1,300 wooden houses, more than half of them in аварийное condition, while only 10 to 20 buildings are demolished each year.
Residents of several such houses told the outlet they have spent years living in apartments with rotten floors, mold, leaking roofs, and tilting walls. Mariya Smirnova, who lived in a barrack on Bykovskogo Street, recalled the fire of June 2023, after which an entire entrance with eight apartments burned out. Her house was declared unsafe in 2018, but the promised demolition dates were moved from 2024 to 2025 and then, she said, to 2030.
Other interviewees described similar experiences. In a house on Pushkina Street, recognized as unsafe in 2018, only three of eight apartments remain occupied. Relatives of Valery Afonin, who died in September 2025, say the family tried unsuccessfully for decades to secure relocation. Accountant Vera Kalinina said her building at 7 Markova Street was supposed to be resettled by 2025, but the deadline was extended by another five years despite prosecutors calling that extension unlawful.
Apartment owner Roman Kulik won a court order for 5.6 million rubles in compensation for unsafe housing, but says he has not been paid because the city cites a budget deficit. Human rights defender Valentina Aralina told Vetër that in 2025 the city effectively stopped making such payments; more than 400 cases of residents who won in court are now pending in the administration.
“The administration has only one answer: there is no money,” residents say officials tell them in response to requests for relocation, repairs, and compensation.
The text was first published by the Vetër project and is based on accounts from residents of Syktyvkar’s unsafe wooden barracks.