Kobylkin's dubious effectiveness. Complain to the Prosecutor General's Office, or to the State Duma, everyone there is their own - Dmitry Kobylkin and Alexander Gerasimenko are not afraid of anything. Residences of Governor Kobylkin
Vasily Kryuk is also marked by the government, financially. A contract was signed with his company in December last year for “air patrolling of the habitat of fauna and aquatic objects.” biological resources" This contract, like those listed above, was carried out with the participation of a single supplier. No other than in gratitude for the joint “air patrol” of the Taimyr Nature Reserve in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. And who else, if not a fellow fisherman, can entrust such a task? You look, and the governor and the prosecutor will be taken on the next “air patrol” of protected areas.
By the way, Vasily Nikolaevich is a deputy of the district Duma. And not just, but a member of the committee on... ecology. This is the starting point for the year of ecology in the strategic region of Russia.
Priorities
According to the state protection program environment by 2020, 7 large and 8 medium vessels for monitoring will be built ecological situation in Arctic sea and river waters.
“Russia, almost a third of whose territory is in the Far North, bears a special responsibility for the Arctic. Therefore, among our priorities in the Arctic zone is to ensure a balance between active economic activity and the preservation of the unique environment.” This is a quote from Vladimir Putin.
How will the governor, prosecutor and environmentalist deputy combine their active economic activity with the preservation of the environment, as the President calls for, one can only guess.
If you have information about violations, write to the “Report corruption” section or to email info@site.
What are its leader and his minions doing in Yamal?
As a correspondent reports, in the city of Nadym, in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug), strange things began to happen. Its inhabitants simply disappear in an unknown direction.
Recently, unrest began in Yamal over the actions of the Rosneftegaz company. Allegedly, she is running amok in the area, grabbing all the tidbits of the vast reserves of minerals there.
More precisely, popular outrage was directed specifically against the head of Rosneftegaz Oleg Sitnikov. He has long had a bad relationship with the governor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Dmitry Kobylkin. It is unknown which cat ran between them, but a targeted attack was launched on the company.
And so, unrest became her crowning glory. But then something bad happened. The participants, one after another, began to declare that they were simply paid for this, and many were forcibly driven away in order to express their protest.
Sitnikov was accused by dissatisfied citizens of such things as wanting to demolish the temple, for which the businessman himself donated 5 million rubles. Some were completely lost in what was happening, beginning to speak out against the railway workers and for the preservation of the Nenets population.
When the story surfaced, in particular in the federal media, strange, if not terrible, things began to happen. First, one of the participants disappeared without a trace, an indigenous resident of the north, Arkady Nadongi, simply disappeared.
Traces of him have still not been found. And he was one of the first to publicly declare that he expressed his indignation at the money that was offered to him by the people of District Attorney Alexander Gerasimenko and Governor Dmitry Kobylkin.
Dmitry Kobylkin.
In particular, the names of Konstantin Rosario, Evgeniy Vengenets and political strategist Andrei Tkachenko were mentioned. Allegedly, they became the organizers and personally made posters for the participants in the car workshop.
Soon, another participant in the action, Evgeniy Musatov, spoke about outright bribery and named the above-mentioned characters. He was allegedly put under extreme pressure, including physical pressure.
Musatov directly blamed Rosario and Vengenets for this, about which he even wrote a statement to law enforcement agencies.
As can be seen from the statement, the man was really afraid for his life and the lives of his family members. Moreover, Musatov reported that when he brought the application to the prosecutor's office, right there.
These are the kinds of things that are happening on the territory of Dmitry Kobylkin, who, by the way, is invariably among the first ranks of the most effective governors of the country. Apparently, sociologists conducting surveys are not interested in all sorts of undercurrents that flow in a region remote from the center.
Sitnikov – Kobylkin\Gerasimenko.
Probably, the confrontation between the head of Rosneftegaz and Yamal officials began 10 years ago. Oleg Sitnikov was then the first to be outraged by the fact that the authorities refused to issue licenses to entrepreneurs, clearly unreasonably, and the constant refusals to extend land leases.
Alexander Gerasimenko.
In addition, information began to appear about the activities of the governor and his entourage. For example, entrepreneurs recalled how the authorities siphoned budget money offshore through shell companies, mentioning amounts of .
The authorities, represented by the head of the district, Kobylkin, tried to put a good face on a bad game. They say this money did not go to some offshore companies, but to support the housing and communal services sector. To maintain existing tariffs for the population.
Only there is no money, and tariffs for the population of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug have increased by 5 percent, but for business! And that’s not all, the backbiters persistently whisper that the war against Sitnikov was launched because he did not want to share dividends with the prosecutor and the governor.
Of course, I categorically don’t want to believe this, but they slander it! The story that Kobylkin and Gerasimenko are avid fishermen and go fishing together added fuel to the fire. Moreover, to quite exotic places.
In particular, they catch fish that are listed in the Red Book and, in principle, cannot be caught. But what kind of laws can there be when you are the head of a region and chief prosecutor! In this case, everything gets blurred.
Gerasimenko and Kobylkin with rare species fish.
Head of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Dmitry Kobylkin found himself at the epicenter of another scandal. A video has appeared online where a person extremely similar to him is captured while fishing. At the same time, the publication that distributed the video indicates that the action takes place in the Taimyrsky Nature Reserve, and the prey is the Red Book Arctic char. Moreover, the governor is allegedly accompanied by a “double” of the district prosecutor Alexandra Gerasimenko. Official representatives Kobylkina are trying not to comment on the situation online, probably in an attempt to gain time to form an exculpatory position. Meanwhile, experts question the authenticity of the video and point to a list of “blunders.” One way or another, this is not the first high-profile scandal involving Dmitry Kobylkin for lately.
A video of high-profile fishing in the Taimyr Nature Reserve in the north has appeared on the Internet. Krasnoyarsk Territory, in which a person similar to the prosecutor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Alexander Gerasimenko was probably involved. As can be seen from the material published by Novaya Gazeta, the “double” of the head of the supervisory agency was not resting alone, but in the company of a man indistinguishable from the governor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Dmitry Kobylkin.
The scandal involving Gerasimenko broke out in 2015, when photos and videos were published in which the prosecutor of Yamal allegedly fished in the Taimyrsky Nature Reserve in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. As journalists pointed out, the people captured in the video were hunting for char - valuable fish, one of the subspecies of which is listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation.
A man similar to the prosecutor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Alexander Gerasimenko
Based on the photos and videos, the publication concludes that the participants in these events flew on a business jet to the village of Khatanga in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, after which they boarded a helicopter painted in the colors of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, on which they headed to the Taimyrsky Nature Reserve.
“Pravda UrFO” sent a request to the Prosecutor General’s Office with a request to study Dmitry Kobylkin’s involvement in these facts.
Head of the Ural branch of ForRGO Anatoly Gagarin does not see significant political risks for Dmitry Kobylkin, but indicates that the materials that have appeared will become a kind of test and test of skills for the governor’s PR service.
“Of course, we need to study all the circumstances and the authenticity of the video. It is still difficult to make predictions, but the appearance of some sensitive information in the public sphere damages the reputation of any governor. Kobylkin does not have an election campaign in the near future, and he does not have any serious opponents, so the appearance of this information may be a common coincidence. We must look, among other things, at the reaction to this information from the governor’s PR service,” noted the famous political scientist.
Press secretary of Dmitry Kobylkin Natalia Khlopunova categorically refused to comment on the acute situation over the phone, asking to send an official request, citing the Federal Law “On the Mass Media.”
A man similar to the Governor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Dmitry Kobylkin
Meanwhile, the publication’s interlocutors close to local political elites believe that the incident will not develop, and, most likely, Governor Dmitry Kobylkin’s involvement in poaching will not be confirmed. As a source from Pravda UrFO indicates, this is due to the special status of both the head of the region and the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug as a whole.
“In Chechnya there is Ramzan Kadyrov, and in Yamal there is Kobylkin, behind whom are oil and gas generals. As long as he arranges them, any scandals can break out in the public – he will retain his immunity. Any resistance is usually harshly suppressed, usually with the involvement of security forces. The special status of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug is similar to the position of the national republics,” says the publication’s interlocutor.
Some experts suggest, however, that the video may be fake. As arguments, the publication's interlocutors cite the discrepancy between the description and what is happening on the screen. According to the director of the biodiversity conservation program at WWF Russia Vladimir Kriver, the flora and fauna depicted in the plot are not found in the Taimyrsky Nature Reserve.
“Of course, flights below two thousand meters over protected lands are prohibited by the regulations on nature reserves, as is landing on their territory without permission from the administration, not to mention any fishing. But if we talk about a specific video, the frame shows a person running away polar bear, which is not found in Taimyrsky. The char caught by the participants in the events is not listed in the Red Book - only its Transbaikal subspecies is listed in the Red Book, which, as we understand, is quite far from Taimyr. Moreover, the larches that are visible in the background also do not grow in this reserve. Well, one last thing: it is very doubtful that anyone was able to determine the location by the bend of the river. We see blunder after blunder, it seems that they wanted to set people up. Probably, this could be a political order, edited from their fishing trip, where they edited footage from a helicopter,” says a representative of the World Wildlife Fund.
One way or another, drawing attention to the figure of Kobylkin in this light is extremely undesirable for the governor himself, especially given his harsh statements regarding the fight against poaching.
Note that this is recent. Currently, the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug government's purchases are being checked by the regional prosecutor's office in connection with the acquisition of 7 educational institutions for 9.3 billion rubles. The contractor for the construction of the “golden kindergartens” is VIS Development, which belongs to a Cypriot offshore company, and therefore the autonomy’s budget money goes abroad when constructing social facilities. Experts see a suspicious connection between the VIS company and Dmitry Kobylkin. The impartiality of the inspection, however, raises doubts among the political scientists and members of the ONF interviewed by the publication, including in light of the replication of the video of char catching.
In Yamal, a group of people vested with power and practically unlimited powers, in their own interests, create funds, investment companies and invest budget funds in assets that are attractive to themselves.
Cash flows from these assets will then be controlled by their friends, partners and loyal businessmen. Let’s just list the names: Ostryagin, Takhtarov, Skorikov, Milykh, Mazharov, Gerasimenko. All these and many other people who you will meet in our investigation are the team of the Governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Dmitry Kobylkin.
The career of Dmitry Kobylkin, it would seem, is an ideal social elevator, which is talked about so much - a graduate of the Ufa "oil industry", a geophysicist engineer, past the path from a simple worker to the first person in the region. But our sources, who have known Dmitry Nikolaevich for a long time, claim that Kobylkin made such a career because he was an intelligent, efficient and loyal assistant to Anatoly Ostryagin and knew too much about the privatization of oil fields and other transactions that were not always carried out legally.
Kobylkin himself calls Anatoly Ostryagin nothing less than his teacher. Director of Purneftegazgeologiya and first deputy governor of Neelov, Ostryagin, after retirement, unexpectedly became one of the richest businessmen in the region, or rather his children. They own one of the largest glass factories in the Urals Federal District and the Moscow Tea Factory, the Ostryagin family controls the Purov Investment Company and one of the largest river carriers in Yamal - Purgeolflot.
Scheme with funds
The creator of the first funds in Yamal was former governor district Yuri Neelov. It was under him and by his order that the notorious “Fund regional development", which was headed by Marksmir Kim. Through this fund, the Salekhard fish processing plant disappeared, which became the property of businessmen Bikov and Bobrov, one of the richest people in the Urals.
We have already written about the story with the fund, when the plant, in which billions of budget funds were invested, suddenly became the property of businessmen close to Kobylkin. Bikov and Bobrov own several large companies in Yamal, including Yamalkommunenergo, the main energy company in the region. By the way, this company appeared in Yamal exactly a year after Kobylkin came to power. Kobylkin himself, however, denies that he knows Artem Bikov well.
With the advent of Dmitry Kobylkin in the governor's chair, the people who control cash flows have changed, there are significantly more funds, but their task remains the same - to transfer money from the district budget to all kinds of investment projects. Formally, the money is not transferred directly to Cyprus or St. Kitts and Nevis, but in fact the governor’s people are placed in the most “monetary” positions and control the huge funds allocated for the development of the region. We are talking about tens of billions of rubles. Moreover, if you study the reporting of funds from the moment Dmitry Kobylkin came to power until 2017, it will be difficult to detect any significant violations. Having taken the governor's post, he became extremely careful. But it’s worth digging deeper - in those days when Kobylkin was deputy vice-governor Ostryagin and worked in the Purovsky district, and much becomes clearer.
For example, the Yamal regional investment fund received 3.8 billion rubles over 6 years, the Development Center investment projects" - no less than 5 billion, it was planned to allocate one billion rubles to the Yamal Cooperation Fund in 2017 alone, the Agency for Infrastructure and industrial development Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug has received 90 million rubles annually for expert and consulting activities since 2016.
The very task of funds is to be opaque. They receive funds and invest in some projects, but the effectiveness of these investments is not controlled. Neither by social activists and journalists, who are forced to extract information bit by bit, nor by the regulatory authorities of the region, who simply do not have such a task, because what is the point of biting the hand that feeds you.
For example, CRIP published annual reports for six years, but after we began active work on investment companies, they refused to publish the report for 2016, which was supposed to appear in July 2017. The fund responded to our request as follows: “CRIP JSC does not is a public joint stock company, the number of shareholders is less than fifty, and therefore is not required to publish and disclose financial statements. JSC "CRIP" operates strictly in accordance with federal legislation."
An illustrative example is the audit of the Yamal RIF fund, which was carried out by the Accounts Chamber of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in 2012. Then the total amount of subsidies, not confirmed by reports on intended use, amounted to 916.7 million rubles. From 2013 to 2017, according to the official response from the Accounts Chamber of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, no inspections were carried out.
The prosecutor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Alexander Gerasimenko, has a different opinion - in his official response to a request about the legality of spending funds, he replied that the Accounts Chamber of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug is conducting an audit, based on the results of which a procedural decision will be made. Once again, in fact, the Accounts Chamber does not carry out inspections, and the prosecutor misleads journalists and public activists (the documents are at the disposal of the editorial office).
With information about joint stock company“Center for Development of Investment Projects” everything is a little easier. For several years he published reports on his activities. It was in these reports that schemes involving the purchase and resale of mansions for representative offices of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Moscow and St. Petersburg were discovered. And in them, CRIP publishes information about its project to revive timber processing. The company invested in several enterprises, effectively becoming their new owner and creating a closed cycle from deforestation to production finished products. These are the Yamal Timber Processing Plant (YLPK), Tolkinsk Timber Processing Company (TLC) and Yamal-Transles.
Lespromkhoz "Krasnoselkupsky"
What connects all these companies? Let's go back to 2002, when the future governor Kobylkin just left Purneftegazgeologiya and became Ostryagin's deputy. In the 1980s, the Krasnoselkupsky departmental timber industry enterprise was created on the territory of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. From 1994 to 1998, the logging enterprise was directly subordinate to OJSC Purneftegazgeologiya; from 1999 to 2010, the enterprise was called Krasnoselkupsky logging enterprise for providing geological enterprises and municipalities" In addition to Purneftegazgeologiya itself, nine more became shareholders of the timber industry enterprise. individuals, including Ostryagin and Kobylkin.
In 2010, this enterprise went bankrupt, and on its basis the company “ Construction technologies" This company was also declared bankrupt in 2015, but before that it created a legal entity registered in Tarko-Sale - YALPK. The same “Yamal timber processing plant”, which is the heart of the entire wood processing system and in which at least 1.6 billion rubles were invested from the fund, which received subsidies from the state.
In 2012, the CRIP was headed by Vasily Milykh, who is well acquainted with the governor’s adviser Akhmad Takhtarov, according to our data right hand the head of the region who oversaw this project. Apparently, it was Takhtarov who recommended Milykh to Kobylkin as a reliable person and an “effective manager.” Takhtarov and Milykh were already involved in woodworking; they both own the Tarko-Salinsky Woodworking Plant. In fact, the appointment of the Milykhs to the fund was the beginning of the project to create the YaLPK - the economic justification for investments in the Yamal Timber Processing Plant was prepared by the consulting company Milykh.
And now briefly about the efficiency of the timber processing plant. According to entrepreneurs from the Yamalo-Nenets Okrug who are engaged in construction, they have never used YALPK products in their work and have not even seen them. Timber for construction is traditionally brought to the district from neighboring regions.
Oleg Skorikov
Milykh’s predecessor as head of the fund had already become involved in a high-profile scandal. In 2012, investigators from the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Urals Federal District collected information about multi-million dollar thefts in an investment company. Then the matter ended with the resignation of the director of the property relations department of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug administration, Lyudmila Dormidontova, and the director of the CRIP itself, Oleg Skorikov. No criminal case was ever initiated. Skorikov and Dormidontova escaped with a slight fright.
The system does not surrender its own, but Oleg Skorikov does not surrender his. He and Ostryagin are one of the co-founders of the YNAO Hockey Federation. Skorikov also knows the Deputy Governor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Alexander Mazharov - in 2011 he sold him his 120 meter apartment in Moscow on Udaltsova Street. Only half a million people live in Yamal; at first glance, it is not surprising that all the people working in or near the authorities know each other. But, if we take a closer look, we will see that these connections are much stronger and deeper. That all the people already mentioned here have common business interests.
Ensuring the security of both business interests and the people themselves is quite likely the responsibility of the permanent prosecutor of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Alexander Gerasimenko. He has been in close contact with Kobylkin and his circle for a long time. They often flew together hunting and fishing. And, as Kobylkin himself said in an interview, “they hunted poachers.” Gerasimenko is friendly with an entrepreneur close to Kobylkin - the owner of YamalAVIA, Vasily Kryuk, who, as a personal pilot, took the governor and the prosecutor fishing on rivers and lakes.
Gerasimenko’s loyalty to Kobylkin is confirmed by another fact: the Dombezproblem company, the founder of which is a certain Vladimir Aleksandrovich Gerasimenko (most likely the son of the district prosecutor), received a contract for the construction of the Varchato recreation center - the distant residence of Governor Kobylkin. And in 2016, Gerasimenko Jr. headed the ASVTekhStroy company, which several years before this appointment won the tender for the renovation of the Yamalsky hotel complex, Kobylkin’s residence closest to Salekhard.
District prosecutor Alexander Gerasimenko was able to provide Governor Kobylkin with a quiet life in Yamal. But in 2013, this led to the governor’s team losing touch with reality and going too far. According to our management source domestic policy The presidential administration and Moscow received information from the FSB that Vice-Governor Yevgeny Miskevich, who oversaw large-scale construction projects in the district, regularly flew on a Bombardier plane of Yamal Airlines from Salekhard to Switzerland. Miskevich allegedly transported money from the county to deposit it in accounts in the quiet mountainous country.
According to the same source, Kobylkin was asked to moderate his appetites and move Miskevich away, otherwise arrests would be made. Evgeniy Miskevich was fired due to at will literally one day and disappeared from the district. The then leadership of the Presidential Administration, apparently, was satisfied with the departure of the vice-governor and the story with the money plane never came up again.
Management in Yamal
What else can surprise effective management in Yamal? The fact that CRIP is the founder of the LOGO company, which in turn created the homeowners’ association “ZhK Uyutny”. The founders of the HOA, in addition to TsRIP, are Polina Takhtarova, the sister or wife of the adviser to the governor Akhmad Takhtarov, and the Astarta company, associated with Svetlana Skorikova, probably the sister or wife of the former director of TsRIP.
Because the case of entrepreneur Alexander Trofimchuk, who accused the head of another governor’s brainchild, the Rural Development Fund, Artur Shakhmuradyan, of corruption and working with an affiliated company Spetsstroyinvest. The police carried out an investigation, but refused to initiate a case, and only numerous complaints to the prosecutor's office helped to cancel the decision to refuse, but the case was released on the brakes.
“The fund, it turns out, as a legal entity is not responsible for providing for its founder, that is, the state, and the state is not responsible for the fund but is supervised by some official, the kickback is from 40 to 70% you must always give to these pigs!” Alexander Trofimchuk angrily comments on this story.
It would be interesting to know how the check was carried out, if according to the database legal entities, Shakhmuradyan could really be interested in working with Spetsstroyinvest. Two of the three founders of the company owned shares in another organization - Baustra, where the co-founder was Rafael Shakhmuradyan, most likely the father of the director of the Rural Development Fund.
Residences of Governor Kobylkin
Governor Kobylkin considers himself an effective manager. He's sure that quality work should be well paid. And successful managers should live beautifully.
The editors have at their disposal estimates for repairs at the governor's near and far residences. Near, three kilometers from Salekhard. We are talking about the so-called “Neelovsky Dachas”, the Yamalsky hotel complex, actually a closed hotel, where Governor Kobylkin lives.
According to available documents, the first thing Kobylkin did when he came to power was to start a grandiose renovation. So the cost of construction and installation work amounted to 95 million rubles, and the equipment in the cottage cost more than 102 million rubles. In particular, a Bang&Olufsen TV worth one million rubles, a stereo system worth 377 thousand, a chandelier worth 300 thousand rubles.
The second residence is the recreation center “Varchato”. A “distant” dacha, which is used by the governor and his entourage. Initially, the project was planned as a tourist project, but apparently the high cost of the tour turned out to be unaffordable for mere mortals. Total cost real estate - 236 million rubles. The complex includes: two large guest houses with an area of 793 and 1440 square meters, several smaller houses, with an area of 86 square meters, connected to the bathhouse by covered passages, separate house for staff, a boathouse for a seaplane (apparently for hunting poachers together with the prosecutor).
For the base, three swamp vehicles, three snowmobiles, the same number of ATVs and several pleasure boats were purchased, with mirrors in the interior self made, in the bar, wine glasses cost five thousand rubles apiece, and clothes for the guests alone were purchased for 9 million rubles. On the street, according to the deed of acceptance of the transfer of property, there was a bathhouse and a chapel made of logs. Moreover, the vat is twice as expensive as the chapel: 5.3 million and 2.6 million, respectively.
Each flight of the governor by helicopter from the capital of the district Salekhard to Varchato is paid for by government agency“Hotel and transport complex “Yamalsky””. Two companies receive orders for the transportation of VIP passengers: AK Yamal and Wings of the Arctic. The company is owned by Alexander Ermakov, a member of the Federation Council from the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and head of the Sterkh Foundation. The same foundation that organized Vladimir Putin’s flight with the Siberian Cranes. In July and August 2015 alone, more than 1.2 million rubles were spent on flights.
Officials of a lower rank do not like to limit themselves either, in particular employees of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug representative office in Tyumen. The Yamal Cooperation Foundation built an “administrative” building for them, which looks more like a residential residence on the territory of the regional representative office. The cost of construction was no less than 36.6 million rubles.
The North loves the brave
Yamal is a harsh region, those who are not afraid to take risks either achieve success there or get screwed. Governor Kobylkin and his team have been governing the district for seven years. They manage at risk. During this time, they became famous for their beautiful reports on successes for the federal center, large-scale projects that are in fact carried out by large oil and gas companies, Russian Railways and the Ministry of Energy (construction of LNG-Yamal in Sabetta, construction of the Northern Latitudinal Railway and the Bovanenkovo-Sabetta road, construction of the Polyarnaya thermal power plant ).
At the same time, the district fell out of the ASI ranking of 20 regions with the most attractive investment climate. Dropped out due to problems with pressure on business, corruption and ineffective management. One of the richest regions of the country is in debt, and the real average salary barely reaches the high cost of living, as in the entire North.
Perhaps Governor Dmitry Kobylkin found himself a hostage to his entourage, which pulled him into gray schemes and multi-step combinations of transfer and withdrawal budget money. Perhaps he himself drew those around him into his game. But in any case, in a country where the goal of an entire decade was to strengthen the vertical power structure, such results and such actions of an individual governor should raise questions from the federal center. Questions that the head of the region will have to answer. And his answers will show which category of risky northerners Dmitry Kobylkin belongs to - those who win or those who break their necks.
Airplanes like oligarchs
The “young and progressive” governor Dmitry Kobylkin follows the worst traditions of the “fat” nomenklatura. Huge amounts of money are allocated from the district budget so that the “servants of the people” - Kobylkin himself and his retinue - move through the air with oligarchic comfort. Now the top officials of Yamal will move even faster, and most importantly, more comfortably, the media reported. The county government office leases six Canadian-made aircraft. The governor and his subordinates will be transported by CRJ-200LR Bombardier airliners with 50 seats for 175.5 million rubles, as well as Bombardier CL-600-2B19* with a VIP interior for 14 seats. The authorities of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug are ready to pay air carriers about 400 million rubles.
After the appetites of Kobylkin’s team caused a stir in the federal media, officials had to look for explanations and justifications for the “airplane decision.” “We have a difficult-to-reach territory in our region, where it is more convenient to get to the desired settlement by air,” Nadezhda Noskova, head of the press service of the government of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, commented then. “That’s why airplanes were chosen for transportation. We have purchased them before, but this time we decided to rent them.”
Press secretary Kobylkina told reporters that luxurious decoration of aircraft cabins is, they say, an objective need. According to her, large-scale events are planned in Salekhard in March. Among them are the Arctic Council and the Congress of Indigenous Peoples of the World, to which honored guests from different countries. However, lawyers specializing in such orders are skeptical about leasing passenger aircraft for the needs of officials.
“Civil servants clearly went too far with the order. They don't even order helicopters, but planes! In my experience, this is the first time that officials needed a passenger airliner with 50 seats. I’m preparing a complaint to the prosecutor’s office and will demand an explanation of the purpose of spending 400 million rubles from the budget,” says public procurement specialist Ekaterina Petrova. The lease agreement will be valid throughout 2013. According to officials, the new planes will be used not only by the governor himself and his subordinates, but also by “seriously ill” mere mortals.”
However, the last excuse only makes the residents of Yamal smile. The Yamalo-Nenets District traditionally ranks first in anti-ratings in terms of level in the public procurement system. Thus, in mid-2012, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, summarizing data on inspections of tenders for government needs, reported on the widespread practice of inflating prices specifically in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. As an example, facts were cited of how Governor Kobylkin’s subordinates purchased snow-melting equipment at inflated prices. It's not hard to guess whose pockets the difference went into.
And in the fall of 2012, a corruption scandal broke out in Yamal after the results of electronic bidding for the organization in the district were announced information system medical and pharmaceutical institutions. The winner of the bidding was a company from Khanty-Mansiysk, the Siberian Center for Information Protection, which offered about 200 million rubles for its services. Officials in Salekhard graciously agreed with this amount, while professional experts considered it deliberately overestimated by four times! A complaint about the lawlessness with procurement in healthcare was received by Dmitry Kobylkin, but the situation did not improve.
