DoubtingBro: Didn't one of the videos at the RC last year have a kid who decided to give up his dream of being a professional musician so he could pioneer or some such nonsense? Pretty ironic if that's the case.
That is exactly the video I thought of when I saw this petition. How ironic that a defunct KH might become a home to young aspiring musicians just like that JW child. The JW child who couldn't pursue his dreams because he might come in contact with non-JWs if he continued studying music.
dsp: quite fascinating - it really shows them up doesn't!!
I was quite fascinated with a personal story I read on a Russian forum. An exJW told of working on KH builds in Russia and about how they had to pretend to not be JWs while they were on site. They had to wear raggedy clothes and carry a pack of cigarettes in their pockets. If anybody was watching them, they would stop and pull out their smokes and stick one in their mouth. And, if anyone asked what was being built, it was never a building for religious purposes - it was a billiard hall or something else equally acceptable to the building code.
It wouldn't surprise me if some of the KHs in Russia were originally built as something else (by a local JW, of course) and then, after construction was complete, the JWs would buy it from the "owner" and convert it to a meeting place.
Of course, I am speculating...but it would be interesting to know the in's and out's of the WTS' Russian shenanigans. They did get into hot water a few years back for dumping toxic waste into the Gulf of Finland. And...if I have interpreted google translate correctly...some of the property that the WTS purchased in Russia was...tada! a toxic waste dump.