From: "Janaka Mahajana (das) DG (Moscow Temple Project)" <Janaka.Mahajana.DG@pamho.net>

To: "Moscow Project Fundraising" <Moscow.Project.Fundraising@pamho.net>

You Can Join Us in Our Response to Being Labeled a 'Sect'

Report of the Moscow temple project, Sept - Dec 2004

Dear friends and supporters of Moscow temple project,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to His Divine
Grace A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada!

Happy New Year to all of you!

It is winter in Moscow, severe Russian winter, sometimes the temperature
goes to minus 15-20 C. The temporary building serving as the Moscow temple
still does not have water supply or connected sewage. The bio-toilets are
outdoors, and the devotees who live in the temple (a dozen of brave souls)
every day have to take bath outdoor too. Right downtown Moscow brahmacharis
take bath in snow! The water for bathing and kitchen is brought every day by
a special car, and if it is not enough, brahmacharies bring extra amount in
buckets. Hopefully, within a couple of weeks or a month the temple will be
connected to the regular water supply, but now water is a luxury for those
who live in the temple.

Despite all the difficulties, the pujaries in the temple maintain very high
standard of Deity worship with five araties and five offerings a day. All
the regular programs are conducted in the temple, including Sunday feast
with 200-300 visitors. Every evening the temporary building is full of
people coming for Bhagavad-gita classes and seminars.

Prabhupada's marathon 2004 was going on full swing. Around 20 sankirtana
devotees, and many congregational members went out to distribute Srila
Prabhupada's books every day. Recently the Russian Parliament declared such
distribution of religious literature illegal, so the police often takes
sankirtana devotees into custody, but they are still going out every day.
Each of them distributes around 30-50 big books daily. The last days of the
marathon almost every devotee distributed 100 books and more. Practically
all the sankirtana devotees (two dozens of them!) are hosted in the house of
Bhaktisiddhanta das who lives there with his family, the wife and three
kids. The extreme case of Russian hospitality!

The separate building outside of Moscow (20 minutes drive from the new land
for the temple) is being constructed. It is big enough to accommodate 40-50
devotees. By April-May of the next year brahmacaries will have a nice ashram
where they will be able to live, serve and study.

Earlier, in the beginning of October we had a wonderful festival in
Divnomorsk, Black Sea with twenty plus speakers, and around 4,000 devotees
from all over Russia. It was wonderful. The theme of the festival was the
new Moscow temple project. Hundreds of devotees signed up for the membership
program, a few gave considerable donations. The grand total collection for
the temple project during the festival was over $45,000.

Now, the new temple project is going through a difficult period at the
moment being under the heavy pressure from the Russian Orthodox Church.
Earlier, in January of 2004 the government gave us the 2.5 acres of land in
one of the best locations of the city to build the temple. This was a result
of 14 years of continuous struggle. But in November the Moscow planning
commission has rejected our project for the 4-th time asking now to make it
more modern and more according to the Moscow skyline. The whole process has
been dragged for over 7 months (from May 2004). In the meantime, our
architect, Arindama das has developed 3 alternative conceptual designs,
trying to adjust to the requirements of the Commission.

This procrastination made us to suspect that there is a plot behind it. In
October our suspicion was confirmed. In a TV interview the secretary of
Inter-Religious Council of Russia, R. Silantyev (a representative of the
Russian Orthodox Church), said "All the members of Inter-religious Council
consider the Society for Krishna Consciousness as a sect, therefore, they
objected against the construction of the Vedic Cultural Centre in Moscow.
The opinion of the traditional churches was heard by the Moscow government.
Now, the Deputy-Mayors, Resin (in charge of the construction in Moscow) and
Men (in charge of the religious organizations) already declared that THERE
WILL BE NO KRISHNA TEMPLE IN MOSCOW. The land still belongs to the Hare
Krishnas, but there are only temporary buildings there, and very soon the
land will be taken away from them under the pretext that it is being used
contrary to the terms under which it was given."

The Russian Orthodox Church is very influential and well politically
connected, and the statements like this have to be taken seriously, even
though from the strictly legal point of view it is very difficult to reverse
the process and take back the land which was once given for a particular
purpose. We developed a two-fold strategy: to fight internationally with the
sect label and at the same time to concentrate our endeavors in India and to
gain the support of the new Indian government.

Madana-mohan das together with Mahamantra das from Delhi started a big and
very successful campaign. Given the nature of this political campaign, I
will not provide the details of it, but in summary we did manage to gain the
required support on all different levels of the political establishment. The
issue of the First Hindu temple in Moscow was discussed on the highest
possible level during the latest visit of Mr. Putin to India. At the same
time we collected a few dozens of letters of support to our project, from
different academicians, clergy (in India) and politicians. Now the Indian
embassy in Moscow has a special order from the government to monitor the
progress of our project. Of course, to make the political reversal strong we
still require a lot of international support, so please contact me if you
have some influential friends of our movement, clergy, politicians,
professionals, etc. who could help us in our struggle by writing a letter to
the government or influencing it in some other way.

We have applied for the prolongation of the contract for the land,
and by the end of January it should become clear whether the government is
generally inclined to prolong it. Our sources in the Moscow government state
that there is no indication to take away the land.

All in all, we can say that our campaign already brings positive
results, and the project is likely to hold its ground if devotees and the
worldwide Indian community would provide additional spiritual, moral and
financial support. Your prayers give us confidence and the financial help
will be used to hold a wider political campaign.

In the beginning of the year we are planning to start a massive letter and
media campaign having different international and Russian scholars and
politicians to send letters confirming our authenticity to the Moscow
government. The idea is to fight the sect label. Our contacts in Oxford
(through the Oxford Center for Hindu Studies) and other educational
institutions will be used. If you know someone who can write a letter
(scholars, politicians, clergy, etc.), please ask him/her to send the letter
to us. We will deliver all the letters we receive by the middle of March.
The letter should be addressed to the Mayor of Moscow Mr. Yu. Luzhkov. The
letters should be sent to: PO BOX 69, Moscow, 125284.

We are working on the budget of the political and media campaign. It will
costs us around $25,000 including the produce of press kits sent to select
international media, TV programs, articles in the major newspapers, office
support, postage, materials, ad cost etc.

If you would like to help us in this campaign, your donations will be highly
appreciated. You can make your contribution, by using the site of the Moscow
temple project www.moscowtemple.org. The PayPal system is available. It is
crucial for the future of the project. Please consider to make your
contribution before January 20th, 2005.

Among other meaningful news of the project, the detailed plan and schedule
of the temple construction has been produced by our team. According to it,
if the Planning commission will give us the green light by the end of
January 2005 we will be able to start the construction in the beginning of
October. Any delay with the Planning commission approval will cause the
proportionate delay in our construction work.

As far as the FR campaign is concerned, it slowly gains momentum. The
preliminary agreement has been reached with the Mayapur FR team as to how to
coordinate the two campaigns. The membership program of monthly donations by
the devotees all over Russia brings around $7,000 per month (enough to cover
half of the new temple project running expenses). The most substantial help
is promised from the London devotees. Srutidharma and Pranabandhu Prabhus
are wholeheartedly and selflessly trying to help. Please find the list of
major pledges included below.

Other devotees all over the world stepping forward to help us in this very
difficult period, and to support our humble endeavors to please Srila
Prabhupada. Their list would be too long to mention all of them. The
situation at the moment is quite intense with many pressures from all the
sides. But at the same time it is very encouraging to see so many devotees
selflessly trying to help, pray and support in many different ways showing
the true spirit of cooperation. On behalf of all the devotees in Russia,
struggling hard to realize this difficult project, I sincerely thank all of
you for your prayers and help. May Lord Krishna and Srila Prabhupada bless
all of you!

Your servant,

Governing Body Commissioner for Russia, Georgia and Armenia,
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami