In early November, residents of Krasnodar began collecting signatures demanding the resignation of Mayor Yevgeny Naumov. The main trigger was the city administration’s refusal to abandon plans to build a church on the Rozhdestvenskaya embankment in the Yubileyny district. The campaign against the project has been going on since last year: residents have recorded video appeals, held one-person pickets, and gathered signatures.
At first, the plan concerned a church in a green zone which, residents say, already suffers from a lack of vegetation: with a population of about 120,000, the district has only 1.2 square meters of greenery per resident instead of the required 16. In the autumn of 2025, activists learned that construction was now planned on a landscaped promenade created after an earlier conflict over development. This section of the embankment was renovated in 2019, and Governor Veniamin Kondratyev had previously promised that nothing else would be built there.
Residents describe the alley as an important public space used for walks, children’s events, neighborhood gatherings, and sports.
To demolish it for yet another building, even a church, would mean destroying an important part of the district’s life,resident Olga Sandu told the outlet Vetter. She said there is already a chapel nearby and the Church of the Nativity of Christ within walking distance, so many locals see the new project as unnecessary.
In late October, civic activist Vitaly Cherkasov sent an appeal to the Russian president asking for Naumov to be removed, arguing that he was ignoring residents’ views. Last year, opponents of the project collected about 3,500 signatures, but officials did not respond. This autumn, the administration held a written “public discussion”: nearly 1,500 submissions opposed the project, while about 400 supported it, yet the commission still approved the plan.
Activists also report pressure from the authorities. According to Cherkasov, police visited signature collectors, questioned people, and made them write statements. Cherkasov himself and Communist deputy Aleksandr Safronov were detained in 2024 while gathering signatures and were later convicted under an administrative charge related to organizing an unauthorized event. In November 2025, residents say police were also questioning people who came to sign appeals calling for the mayor’s resignation.
Some church representatives support the construction. The rector of the Church of the Nativity of Christ, Father Aleksandr Ignatov, previously said the district should have 12 churches, while Metropolitan Vasily recently described the project as a settled matter and said the complex would include a four-hectare parking area and a church built on a stylobate. Many residents insist the dispute is not about faith but about preserving public space, and they say they intend to continue resisting the development.