MOSCOW, Aug. 1 (UPI) -- A model village dating from the early years of the Soviet Union is threatened by Moscow's hot real estate market.
Sokol, 6 miles from the Kremlin, was designed in 1923 as a cooperative community with the backing of Vladimir Lenin himself. The village was shaped like a star, with wooden houses and unpaved streets, and was home to artists and intellectuals.
The Scotsman reports that the village survived as a rural oasis through the Stalinist era and World War II. Now, the new millionaire class is moving in.
Marina Faydysh, an artist, was born in Sokol 60 years ago and still lives there. She is not happy with the new era.
"It's huge fences, intercoms, security cameras ... big dogs," she told the newspaper. "They're aliens."
Mikhail Rychagov, head of the village council, said that a majority of families have been there for several generations, the newspaper reported. But he said that the high prices are putting a lot of pressure on them to sell out.
