MOSCOW TEMPLE NEWS APRIL 10 2007

from HH Bhakti Vijnana Goswami

This is the update of the latest news of ISKCON-Moscow temple project.

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 alloted
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 neccessary 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
impotrant 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 grishashas 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.

Your servant,
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami