Latest News of ISKCON-Moscow Temple Project

[suchandra]

Finally things seem to gradually developing in Moscow. Bhakta Charlie has the news:

 

Latest News of ISKCON-Moscow Temple Project

BY: BHAKTA CHARLIE

Apr 16, ALACHUA, FLORIDA (SUN) — The latest news update on the ISKCON-Moscow temple project, from HH Bhakti Vijnana Goswami.

The main news is that finally on April 3d the Mayor of Moscow signed the decree alloting 5 acres of land for the Krishna's temple in Moscow. Although the decision has been taken long ago, and we knew about it, still all the formalities were completed only on Tuesday.

For a few hours it was the News Number 1 in Russia. Practically all the newspapers, news agencies, radio stations and TV channels announced it. Mostly the reports were favourable. The news is even more significant that the general tendencies in Russia are not in principle very favourable for this kind of move. There is persisting talks about blacklisting of non-traditional for Russia religious organization. So this decision becomes even more important for our future giving us giving us an important weight and aura of a recognized religion.

Again, many devotees around the world were instrumental in achieving this success. All Russian devotees are eternally indebted to them, and I am sure that Srila Prabhupada is very pleased by the spirit of cooperation which helped us finally, after so many troubles and tribulations come to this stage.

Besides that, the new Temple complex design has been created by our architect, Arindama das suitable for the configuration of the allotted land. Unfortunately the first design will not fit the land due to some limitations. The conceptual design has been already approved by the Planning Committee which is a big achievement in itself. Usually it takes months before the approval is received.

If you would like to receive the drawings please write to me.

Now we are about to sign the contract with a firm which will work on getting all other necessary signatures. Around 20 different City Committees, like Ecological Committee, Energy Committee, etc., have to agree with the proposed plan before we can do the next step. The work is supposed to take 2 to 3 months. After that the building permit will be issued and we will be on the safe side.

IMPORTANT: This huge work will cost us little more than 100,000 USD. If you or somebody you know would be willing to sponsor a part of this important work this will help significantly to push forward the project. Please contact me for the details.

There are several other important challenges we are facing right now. Within a couple of months we will have to find a new place in the city and move our operation and Deity worship there, since we will have to vacate the old land by July. We cannot move to the new land because of so many reasons.

At the same time, as you may know, we recently lost our countryside property where around 200 grishastas were living. This place also have to be vacated very soon. So the amount of problems is quite overwhelming, even though there are some positive indications.

I will report about our progress in this areas in my next posting.

Please pray to the Lord so that He would enable us to overcome all these problems and spread His glories in this most important, but difficult city of the world.