MOSCOW, July 5 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s prestigious Academy of Sciences, whose members are currently engaged in a fierce battle against government-proposed reforms, found itself under fire yet again Friday when police raided the basement of its Moscow headquarters for illegal immigrants.
After receiving a tip-off late Thursday that the basement was being used as a makeshift hostel, police arrived there in the early hours of Friday as part of Operation “Illegal Immigrant,” Russian media reported. It took several hours and help from Russia’s Emergencies Ministry to gain access to the basement area, a police spokeswoman was quoted as saying.
Once inside, they found the place deserted.
However, police found numerous signs of recent habitation, including “makeshift structures made from dozens of cardboard boxes” and 73 sleeping places, the police spokeswoman said.
They also found cell phones plugged in to charge, a TV switched on and a kettle on an electric stove, Russia’s Rossiya 24 TV network reported.
The police spokeswoman suggested that the inhabitants of the basement might have “been taken out at 9 a.m. in a bread van, or could have left through one of the exits into the main building, or been hiding in the bomb shelter.”
The dawn raid follows a series of allegations leveled at the academy by government figures recently amid fierce debate over proposed reforms to it.
On Wednesday, Olga Golodets, a deputy speaker in the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, claimed more than half the academy’s real estate was not properly registered. She also claimed “elite” housing had been built on land belonging to the Academy of Sciences, calling it “the height of cynicism.”
The State Duma passed a government-backed bill proposing sweeping reforms of the academy in a second reading on Friday.
The proposals include passing control of the academy’s considerable assets and institutes to a new state agency, and merging the venerable institution, which was founded in 1724, with two other state academies: agricultural and medical schools.
The hastily developed reform bill – which saw its first reading on Wednesday – has prompted an outcry among Russia’s academic community and the Academy of Sciences itself, whose union has threatened a nationwide strike over the proposals.
This week, the academy’s presidium said the proposed reforms would cripple science in Russia by transferring control over it to bureaucrats with no academic experience. Critics have also claimed that the reforms are aimed at seizing control of the academy’s assets, with one member comparing the reform to “corporate raiding.”
A third reading of the bill is due to take place in the fall.
