A Russian casino operator has written an open letter to President Vladimir Putin asking him (a) not to close the Azov-City casino zone, and (b) don’t send me to Siberia.

On Wednesday, Russian gambling news outlet Betting Business Russia printed excerpts from a letter written by Maxim Smolentsev, director of CJSC Shambala, which operates the Shambala casino (pictured) in the Azov-City gaming zone and just announced plans to build a new casino in the far east Primorye gaming zone near Vladivostok.

The three casinos in the Azov-City gambling zone, located in Russia’s southwestern Krasnodar Krai region, have been ordered to shut down by January 1, 2019. The shutdown was ordered last year by Putin to allow the opening of a new gaming zone in the nearby Sochi region.

That shutdown was actually an extension of an earlier order that required the casinos to close by April 2015, and Shambala’s Smolentsev said last year that he suspected the latest shutdown order may also not be carved in stone. But the Russian Duma has approved legislation calling for the Azov-City casinos to wrap things up as scheduled, leaving Smolentsev with no option but to make a public plea to Putin.