According to the site "Capital C", apparently, the political career of the 39-year-old Deputy Prime Minister of Mordovia Alexei Merkushkin did not work out

The other day, power circles were shocked by the news, which can be considered at least a black mark for the most successful family in Mordovia. The minister of targeted programs of the Republic of Moldova was excluded from the federal personnel reserve! This means that the Kremlin is no longer betting on the son of the ex-governor of the Samara region, Nikolai Merkushkin. Earlier - in 2016 - his close friend Alexei Grishin lost his place in the personnel reserve (From September 2014 to December 2016 he was Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Construction of the Samara Region. - Ed. ). Although 15 years ago, the entire Mordovian beau monde called them the future masters of the republic.

According to official data, Alexey Merkushkin was born on June 20, 1978 in Saransk. owns English language. Married, has two sons. In 2000 he graduated from Moscow State University. N.P. Ogarev with a degree in Jurisprudence. In 2004 - Russian Economic Academy named after G.V. Plekhanov with a degree in Economics. He began his career in 2001 as a legal adviser of JSC Lamzur S. In February 2001 - Deputy General Director of OJSC Lamzur S, since March 2001 - General Director of OJSC Lamzur S. And on December 5, 2012, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Targeted Programs of the Republic of Moldova. It was rumored that Alexei would not linger in this chair and would definitely “shoot” higher. But, according to "Capital C", then such a personnel decision was not approved by the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation and Merkushkin's enthusiasm subsided somewhat.

In recent years, Alexey has become famous as the most wealthy minister of the Mordovian government. For example, in 2016 he declared 16 million rubles, and in 2015 - almost 40 million rubles! It seemed that the inhabitants should be shocked by such amounts, but not the inhabitants of Mordovia, who are well aware of where the capital came from.

Nikolai Merkushkin and Alexei Grishin during their work in the Samara region

There were rumors that Nikolai Merkushkin would like to see his man as the head of region-13. Allegedly, Alexei Grishin and Alexei Merkushkin were "grown" for this purpose. But something went wrong. The Kremlin has drastically changed its personnel policy, heading for the fight against nepotism and clans in power. Currently, Grishin holds a good post in the Ministry of Construction and Housing and Utilities of Russia. with an iron hand manages the entire department of urban planning and architecture. "Capital C" could write a lot about this outstanding official, but the time has not yet come. And Alexei Merkushkin, apparently, after the 2018 World Cup will return to big business, where he previously showed himself as a successful, far-sighted manager who knows how to select a team, set realistic goals for them and achieve results. There are literally legends about the outstanding abilities of Alexei. But not all of them should be trusted. One thing is known - the path to big politics is apparently closed to him.

Photo: stolica-s.su

Incomes of members of the Samara Cabinet of Ministers: how the scandal with the FBK and the confrontation with Ravil Ziganshin led to the loss of the richest official in the region

The analytical service of Realnoe Vremya studied the income and property declarations of the members of the government of the Samara Region for 2016 and found out that, despite the optimization of management expenses announced by Governor Nikolai Merkushkin, the ministers' income increased on average - due to sales real estate. Nevertheless, it still seriously lags behind the average income of members of the Tatarstan Cabinet of Ministers.

Owned - one garage

The annual income of the head of the region in 2016 amounted to 4.28 million rubles, and this is 8% less than a year earlier (it was 4.66 million). The fact is that the governor is fulfilling his own instruction - to optimize budget expenditures for the maintenance of civil servants, in 2016 these costs were cut by 10%, a similar reduction occurred in 2017. The income of the wife of the head in 2015 was an order of magnitude less than the governor's, but over the year they grew, and quite significantly - from 414 thousand rubles to 498 thousand.

Of the real estate objects, the governor owns only a 20-meter garage, in which, it should be noted, the Lada XRay has been patriotically located since last year. In the Luxe / Prestige configuration, this car costs about 730,000 rubles. Previously, Merkushkin owned the Lada Largus for several years, which he sold in 2015. After that, it turned out that the members of the regional government in their entirety were ignoring the products of the Togliatti VAZ - they all did not have a single car of a local manufacturer. Apparently, Merkushkin decided to influence his subordinates by personal example (looking ahead, we note that he did not act).

But in the use of Nikolai Ivanovich, the residence of the governor with an area of ​​​​649 square meters. m, located within the city in a park area. An even greater “but” lies in a variety of real estate, registered as the individual property of the spouse. This includes a residential building (378 sq. m.), two apartments (65 and 54 sq. m.), a land plot for individual housing construction (1842 sq. m.), land of settlements (807 sq. m.) and outbuildings (180 sq. m. .m). The garage, as the only property of the governor, looks especially pitiful if we remember how "lucky" Merkushkin's numerous relatives in Mordovia are - brothers, sons, nephews and others. But this is a topic for another study.

The delay in the construction of the Samara Arena for the 2018 World Cup did not prevent Merkushkin from staying in his chair. Photo volga.news

As you know, Merkushkin got into the anti-top 8 governors, which in April was compiled by the Center for the Development of Regional Policy (the so-called "Kremlin rating", which evaluates not the effectiveness of the governor's work, but the likelihood of his resignation). Nevertheless, he managed to stay in his chair. Neither the conflict with the local elites, nor the rallies for the resignation of the governor, nor the delay in the construction of the Samara Arena for the 2018 World Cup, nor the general background of the degradation of the territory prevented this. As political consultant Pyotr Bystrov suggested in an interview with Realnoe Vremya, until March 2018, Merkushkin will definitely sit through - as a person who knows how to give results in elections. Moreover, almost 2.5 million voters live in the region under his jurisdiction.

Interestingly, as possible replacements for Nikolai Ivanovich as head of the subject, experts named, among other things, the names of two current members of the regional government - the vice-governor and head of the administration of the governor Dmitry Ovchinnikov and the deputy chairman of the government - Minister of Construction Alexander Balandin.

If the first had a relatively decent income in 2016 - 3.29 million rubles, then the second earned at the level of an ordinary minister - “only” 1.58 million (for comparison, the income of the Minister of Culture of the Samara Region, Sergey Filippov, amounted to 1.59 million) . However, this is due to the fact that almost all of 2016 (and two years before) Balandin worked as the head of the Volzhsky district of the Samara region.

Note that Ovchinnikov, his wife and four children do not own any residential property. And only the head of the family has non-residential real estate, namely two land plots of 1628 and 700 sq. m and a garage (larger than the governor's - as much as 33.5 sq. m). A large vice-governor's family lives in a residential building (674.7 sq. m.) and a dacha (178 sq. m.), which are in their use.

Dmitry Ovchinnikov was named as a possible replacement for Merkushkin as head. Photo nesluhi.info

Leaders of sells

Most among the members of the Samara regional government in 2016 earned the vice-governor - minister economic development, investment and trade Alexander Kobenko - 13.97 million rubles. True, the lion's share (10.4 million rubles) of this result was ensured by the sale of property - real estate (an apartment of 105 square meters for 8.5 million rubles) and movable (a Toyota Land Cruiser car for 1.9 million rubles) . Thus, the official remained with his wife "Hyundai" (unless, of course, he purchased new car already this year, except for the hopelessly lost Audi, which has been listed as stolen since 2004). But the advanced Deputy Prime Minister has a "motor vehicle" "Harley-Davidson" and a boat "Bayliner". Despite a decent background associated with VAZ (Kobenko worked at AVTOVAZ for seven years, leaving him as director of finance in 2012, and in 2013 he published the book "People and Automobiles" dedicated to the history of domestic motorsport), the minister, as you can see, he also prefers foreign-made vehicles.

The next largest income is the vice-governor (without the ministerial portfolio) Alexander Fetisov - 8.88 million rubles. At the same time, in 2015 he earned only 2.09 million rubles. True, until September 2015, Fetisov headed the Samara City Duma, and only the rest of 2015 (and almost all of 2016) worked as deputy prime minister, and on December 19 last year he became vice governor. But more importantly, this official in 2016 also solved his housing problem. His last declaration lost two apartments - 63 and 49 sq. m, as well as real estate such as a garage of 14 sq. m and a plot of land for a garage of 16 sq. meters.

Seriously improved his financial situation and Deputy Prime Minister - Head of Department information technologies and communications Stanislav Kazarin, who earned 5.6 million rubles. A year earlier, it was 3.57 million rubles less, and this difference is most likely also due to the sale of an apartment with an area of ​​60 square meters.

The leaders include the only woman among the members of the Samara Cabinet - Marina Antimonova. Photo volga.news

The leaders with the amount of 5.3 million rubles include the only woman among the members of the Samara Cabinet of Ministers - the Minister of Social, Demographic and Family Policy Marina Antimonova, who recently has an above-average income in the government (in 2015 it was even more - 8.1 million rubles). ). Previously, the official did not stand out from the ranks of her colleagues, but two years ago her family again seriously took up real estate: a residential building with an area of ​​​​238 square meters disappeared from the declaration for 2015. m, which was jointly owned with her husband, and last year the family sold an apartment of 90 sq. m, also jointly owned with her husband. But now the minister and her spouse have a joint property of a residential building with an area of ​​422.5 square meters. meters.

Rich wives and a non-poor husband

The prime minister of the government of the Samara region and concurrently the first vice-governor Alexander Nefedov earned a rather modest 3.24 million rubles for his position. In 2015, he had 4.07 million, so Alexander Petrovich also donated personal income to support the campaign to reduce management costs. At the same time, the second person in the region is the undisputed leader of the list in terms of total family income. Thanks to Nefedov's wife, Tatyana Peremyshlina, regional director of the Samara office of PJSC Promsvyazbank, their total income amounted to 23.5 million rubles (in 2015 - 19.2 million).

Only three spouses of members of the Samara government, in addition to Peremyshlina, earned more than a million rubles last year. This is the husband of Marina Antimonova - 3.97 million rubles (recall, he received his share from the sale of real estate), the wife of the deputy chairman of the government - Minister of Industry and Technology Sergei Bezrukov - 1.44 million (Bezrukov himself earned 3.66 million) and the wife of the already mentioned Alexander Balandin - 1.11 million

Unfortunately, the list of declarations for 2016 does not include Alexei Grishin, the vice-governor and minister of construction of the region, who was promoted to Roskapstroy in December last year. This is entirely Merkushkin's creature, he is the son of a close friend of Nikolai Ivanovich - Viktor Grishin, rector of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. Grishin Jr. arrived in Samara in July 2012, two months after Merkushkin's "accession". He was considered the richest official in the region and, by the way, was a defendant in one of FBK investigations, who discovered that the official owned a land plot and a house on Rublevsky Highway worth 360 million rubles.

Aleksey Grishin was considered the richest official in the region and, by the way, was a defendant in one of the FBK investigations. Photo stolica-s.su

It should be added to this that, perhaps, Grishin's resignation was connected with the conflict history around the very stadium "Samara Arena", which is being built by the PSO "Kazan". Due to the delay in the schedule, the Samara authorities even initiated the replacement of the general contractor with a local company, but the attempt failed - Ravil Ziganshin remained at the mega-construction.

In 2015, Grishin declared 13.35 million rubles of income and two apartments in individual ownership - 163 and 155 sq. meters. At the same time, the wife of the ex-minister Yulia, director of Saranskneft LLC, showed income of 25.36 million rubles (the total income of the spouses, therefore, amounted to 38.71 million rubles) and several real estate objects, among which a house with an area of ​​1747 square meters stands out. m and a garage of 242 sq. meters.

Interestingly, the average annual income of ministers in the Samara region (3.80 million rubles) is as much as 12% less than the same indicator for members of the Tatarstan Cabinet (4.31 million). However, this has its own logic - at least based on a comparison of the expenditure part of the budget of these regions: in Tatarstan in 2017 it is 194 billion rubles, in the Samara region - 136 billion. Let's also take into account that last year members of the Samara government actively sold your property. Otherwise, their average income in 2016 would not exceed the income of the previous year (3.80 million versus 3.14 million), but, on the contrary, would be inferior to it, taking into account the “optimization campaign”.

Rustem Shakirov

https://www.site/2017-09-25/nikolay_merkushkin_ushel_ostaviv_samarskuyu_oblast_bezzachitnoy_pered_cru_i_gosdepom

Anomalous Governor

Nikolai Merkushkin left, leaving the Samara region defenseless against the CIA and the State Department

Yuri Strelets / RIA Novosti

Putin accepted the resignation of the governor of the Samara region Nikolai Merkushkin at his own request. Senator from the Samara region, ex-head of Samara Dmitry Azarov has been appointed as acting governor. Merkushkin will become the president's special envoy for interaction with the Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples. the site recalls the political path and decline of the career of this extraordinary governor.

Whistleblower of the Dulles Plan

Merkushkin, 66, has lived a long political life. In recent years, he has appeared on the pages of the media and social networks mainly in connection with his scandalous statements and actions.

So, in August 2016, at a meeting with AvtoVAZ employees in Togliatti, who asked when they would pay off their wage arrears, Merkushkin accused them of working for the US State Department.

“If you talk in such a tone, you will never pay off your debts! Those who are warming you up, ask them… When, among other things, the American ambassador came, he came to warm up just these people, and then they showed them to the whole world for a month!” - such a statement was made by Merkushkin in front of AvtoVAZ employees.

In the same August, at a pre-election meeting with residents of the Oktyabrsky district, Merkushkin announced that the US State Department had a plan to occupy the Samara region, in connection with which the CIA hacked into the mail of the regional government. At that meeting, Merkushkin called the late State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova a “liaison of the State Department.” And Merkushkin announced publications about himself by opposition politician Alexei Navalny as part of the "Dulles Plan" (the mythical concept of the US struggle against the USSR).

“Why is he suddenly now, well, almost every day writing about Samara, writing about me. Why? Because this chaos that Dulles has is all mixed up, everything is mixed up in their heads, they really want to keep this chaos. This chaos is needed when the time comes to throw a match, this chaos will immediately start a fire, ”Merkushkin told the astonished Samara residents (Navalny at that time released a short video about Merkushkin; it claimed that the Samara governor and his entourage have houses on Rublevsky Highway worth millions of dollars).

After the protest actions on March 23, 2017, in which Samara youth also took part, Merkushkin met with the students. The participants of the meeting were shown the film "No to Extremism", filmed by the local TV channel "Guberniya", where the opposition rallies were equated with the Maidan and the "Arab Spring". The authors of the film urged the viewer to prevent the Maidan in the Samara region by supporting Merkushkin. A blind student openly spoke out against Merkushkin, starting to talk about bad roads and social problems. The governor replied that critics were being “sent” to him, and the student was escorted out of the meeting by the police. At the same meeting, Merkushkin said that the construction of a stadium in Samara for the 2018 FIFA World Cup was slowing down the US State Department, that the head of the region himself was one of the main goals of the CIA, and that pensions in Samara had grown to 70,000 rubles (the theses of the governor were disseminated on social networks by students attending the event).

Back in July, Merkushkin's interlocutors were one of the main contenders for resignation in the autumn wave. And in general, they have been talking about the resignation of the odious governor for more than a year.

In 2016, Merkushkin came into conflict with the former administrators of domestic policy, headed by the then first deputy head of the administration, Vyacheslav Volodin, recalls a site source close to the presidential administration. Then the results of the United Russia primaries did not suit the governor and his entourage. The difference between the results and the approved list of candidates attracted the attention of the central executive committee of United Russia, and the governor was forced to retreat. As a result, a rather strange campaign was going on in the Samara region in the elections to the district councils: self-nominated candidates went as a "governor's team", and some United Russia members defiantly distanced themselves from Merkushkin.

Merkushkin's relations with the administration also did not work out after Volodin was replaced by Sergei Kiriyenko. The governor did not fit into the declared course of “renovation”, “rejuvenation”, “technocrats” at all, continues our source.

Mordovian autocrat

Nikolai Merkushkin started his political career in Mordovia, where he lived most of his life. In 1982, he became the first secretary of the Mordovian Regional Committee of the Komsomol, and in 1990, the second secretary of the Mordovian Republican Committee of the Communist Party of the RSFSR. In the same year, he ran for the post of chairman of the Supreme Council of the Mordovian ASSR, but lost the election to Nikolai Biryukov. In 1994, Merkushkin was elected to the State Assembly of Mordovia, in 1995 he headed it, and in the fall of that year he was elected to the post of head of Mordovia. He held this position for five consecutive terms.

Mordovia is known to experts as one of the regions of the “electoral anomaly”, where people vote for power absolute majority voters, while transparent system there is no observation, violations are systematically recorded and there is no reason to assume that the election results there correlate with the real ratings of the federal and regional authorities. In 2011, United Russia received 91.79% of the vote in the State Duma elections in Mordovia.

In May 2012, President Vladimir Putin appointed Merkushkin as acting head of the Samara Region. Later, in 2014, Merkushkin ran for early re-election and won with a "Mordovian" result of 91% of the vote. But in 2016, after the conflict between the governor and the federal United Russia party, the party received only 50.75% of the vote in the State Duma elections in the Samara region.

Grigory Sysoev / RIA Novosti

“Merkushkin, like many governors who came to power in the 1990s, had a hard time with the conflict of changing political reality,” says the former federal official. - Some of the governors overcame this conflict with dignity, like the former head of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev or the head of the Belgorod region Yevgeny Savchenko. It was hard for someone, like the ex-mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov. In the 1990s, the governor was perceived as a full-fledged owner of the territory, almost as a sovereign. He built all the processes for himself, there was privatization. In modern realities, the governor is a high-status official who heads the subject, no more and no less, ”he says. According to him, the result of Merkushkin in the Samara region in his own gubernatorial elections of 92% is his exhaustive characteristic.

It is worth noting the conflict between Merkushkin and ex-State Duma deputy from the Samara region Alexander Khinshtein. Khinshtein publicly criticized the governor's entourage - for example, the city manager of Samara, Oleg Fursov. Khinshtein accused him of spending 10 million rubles to celebrate his anniversary, which, according to official income, Fursov could not afford. Khinshtein also criticized the regional government about solving the problems of deceived equity holders. In particular, he said that under the guise of solving such problems, “various corruption schemes” are being implemented, funds and land plots were illegally allocated. As a result, Khinshtein did not go to the State Duma from the region and now continues his career in the National Guard.

“Khinshtein has become a victim of his own good work for the second time. Merkushkin did not tolerate potential competitors around him, and the young active deputy who worked with the population aroused his jealousy, as he seemed to Merkushkin as a candidate for governor, ”explains a source close to the presidential administration.

The same nature, according to the interlocutor, was the conflict between Merkushkin and the current acting, and then the head of Samara, Dmitry Azarov. Azarov was elected to the post of head of Samara in 2010 with a score of 66.9%, but in the fall of 2014, at the initiative of Merkushkin, he left for the Federation Council. In the political establishment, a position in the Federation Council is generally considered to be exile and an honorable resignation, and in the case of Azarov, this was exactly the case.

“Azarov was a strong political figure in the region before Merkushkin's arrival there. And Merkushkin, as an authoritarian person, began to hard clean up the political space for himself. In Azarov, he, of course, saw a competitor, ”explains a source close to the Kremlin.

“Independent mayor and alien governor, local and Varangian. What else is there to add? One had to go to Moscow for a while,” Konstantin Kalachev, head of the Political Expert Group, describes the essence of the conflict.

Samara blogger Dmitry Begun testified in detail about these conflicts in 2015. He and two other Samara bloggers were detained in a case of extortion. Begun told the investigation that for several years, for 300 thousand rubles a month, he published compromising materials on Samara politicians and officials on the direct orders of Merkushkin, including on Azarov and Khinshtein.

Year after year, a heap of problems only accumulated. The socio-economic situation in the region did not improve, conflicts with regional elites grew, all this happened against the backdrop of scandalous statements by the governor in the media.

“When the governor is in a difficult situation, one should not draw too much attention to oneself by creating an additional negative information background,” notes Gleb Kuznetsov, member of the board of directors of the Expert Institute for Social Research.

The scandalousness of Merkushkin really did not allow him to be forgotten. During last year experts openly predicted his resignation in every “wave”, that is, in the fall of 2016 and spring 2017. However, the last straw, according to an interlocutor close to the presidential administration, was Merkushkin’s conflict with the influential state corporation Rostec, which owns shares in a number of large companies in the Samara region.

Most experts agree that the moral of the story of Nikolai Merkushkin is as follows: if a person as head of one region looked adequate, it is not a fact that he will be able to successfully lead any other region. And if in one region it was possible to build a super-authoritarian model, it is not a fact that the same model can be built anywhere.

“The Samara region and Mordovia are completely different regions, - says Alexander Kynev, head of regional programs of the Information Policy Development Fund. - In principle, the history of Merkushkin's leadership of the Samara region resembled a modified history of his leadership of Mordovia. It all started with the "suffocation in the arms" of the local elites, when at first he demonstrated a willingness to negotiate, and then annihilated potential opponents. In the Samara region, when Merkushkin was appointed, he met with everyone, and even the opposition had some hopes, but then everyone was brought to a common denominator. This also applies to opposition politicians, deputies of all levels, and the media. A huge number of destinies have been crippled. The Mordovian regime was personalistic, management was focused on one person, all the rest were technical advisers. But such regimes have a limitation on the territorial principle. A personalized system has limits on efficiency. What could be done in small Mordovia cannot be done in the complex and large Samara region. One person cannot control so many processes,” says Kynev. In his opinion, Merkushkin's resignation is just the clearest signal about the "renewal" of the governor's corps, in contrast to the resignations of governors of small and remote regions.

Yuri Strelets/RIA Novosti

Political consultant Oleg Matveychev notes that Mordovia is a predominantly rural region and Merkushkin was the main representative of the elite there.

“He managed to build an authoritarian system where everyone comes to bow to him. And in the Samara region there are regional elites, there are separate elites of Tolyatti, Samara, Syzran. All the leading financial and industrial groups of the country are represented in the Samara region, which are headed by people who communicate with persons of status above Merkushkin. Therefore, his approach failed, as a whole elite coalition lined up against him, ”Matveychev sums up.

Andrey Kolyadin, head of the regional programs of the EISI, former deputy presidential representative in the Urals Federal District, believes that main problem Merkushkin was the fact that he, having lived in the Samara region for six years, did not manage to fall in love with her and become his own in it.

“Having arrived in the Samara region, he closed himself, surrounded himself with several people who came with him from Mordovia, and communicated only with them. For example, I lived in Yekaterinburg for a year and managed to make friends with the region and fall in love with it. He, having arrived in Samara, did not fall in love with the region for six years, ”says Kolyadin.

Merkushkin's new job is the president's special envoy for interaction with the Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples. His active federal career is probably over.

“Probably, Merkushkin would like to take a different post. The most desirable post for a retired governor is the Federation Council or a seat in the executive branch. But the executive branch has taken a course towards rejuvenation, and Merkushkin's age and methods cannot be called modern. State corporations also need more modern people, therefore, remembering Merkushkin’s Mordovian past, he was chosen such a position, ”says the former federal official.

Ekaterina Shulman, Associate Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences at the RANEPA, notes that Merkushkin's departure from the governor's post without a criminal case is already not bad in modern times, and granting him at least some honorary position in the system can be considered an indicator that there is no criminal case at the moment. But it does not follow from this that it will not be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. According to Shulman, the position of the president's special representative for interaction with the Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples was probably just the first thing that came to mind when looking for a potential place to move Merkushkin from the governor's chair, and in some ways this is a manifestation of "staff humor."

Legacy: Can't change?

Acting Governor of the Samara Region Dmitry Azarov is 47 years old, he is returning to the region from his "honorary exile" to the Federation Council.

Azarov is a native of Samara. Prior to entering politics, he made a career in business - in 2001-2006 he was the general director of Srednevolzhskaya Gas Company LLC. In 2006-2008 he was the first deputy head of Samara Viktor Tarkhov. In 2010, Tarkhov, who entered the 2000s, first to Rodina, then to Sergey Mironov's Party of Life and then to his Just Russia, went to a new term. Azarov ran against Tarkhov for United Russia and won the election with 66.9% of the vote. In 2014, after a protracted confrontation with Merkushkin, Azarov, as already mentioned, was "evacuated" to the Federation Council.

Former head of the internal policy department of the presidential administration, head of the Civil Society Development Fund Konstantin Kostin assesses the appointment of Azarov positively.

“Azarov, in my opinion, combines two extremely important competencies that are necessary for the successful work of the governor. He has positive experience in economic management, and at the same time, in the 2010 mayoral elections in Samara, he proved himself as a political leader, managed to run a bright campaign in a difficult city, unite elites around him, propose a program to citizens and successfully implement it. Azarov already then corresponded to the current current request for renewal and the coming to power of a new generation, ”Kostin believes.

Mikhail Klimentiev/RIA Novosti

Another interlocutor of the publication, close to the administration, is less friendly towards the new governor and says that the politician from Azarov is strong, he catches all the signals and executes clearly, but whether he can cope with the economic part of his work is a big question.

Presidential elections will take place in March 2018. It is expected that the current head of state Vladimir Putin will take part in them. It is obvious that the result of the main candidate and the course of the campaign in the Samara region will be the first test for Acting Governor Dmitry Azarov, who will be elected to his post on a single voting day in the fall of 2018.

As mentioned above, in 2014 Merkushkin received 91% of the vote in the elections in the Samara region, which, of course, is an anomalous result, more typical for national republics. Now the new government faces a dilemma: is it worth chasing Merkushkin's percentage or organizing the electoral process more democratically?

“In a sense, they tried to transfer the “Mordovian electoral anomaly” to the Samara region. The region has been negative influence, although the authorities still had to respond to scandals and resistance. Still, it did not work out to make Mordovia out of the Samara region, ”notes Alexander Kynev.

The head of the Petersburg Politics Foundation, Mikhail Vinogradov, has already joked on his Facebook that the new regional authorities are now faced with the dilemma “cannot be left to change.”

“Merkushkin received an extremely high result in the gubernatorial elections, which clearly did not correspond to his real popularity. Now the region is in a dual situation. On the one hand, a large number of voters live in the Samara region, and the center needs votes for power in order to quantitatively compensate for the voting results in large cities, for example, in Moscow, where people vote for power worse. Merkushkin's "electoral machine" was a serious asset for the center, and now it is not clear whether it will be able to function without him and, most importantly, whether it is necessary to maintain caricaturely high results in its current form or, for the purity of elections, to demand more realistic figures for the Samara region, where there are protest moods in Samara or in Togliatti,” concludes Vinogradov.

On Monday, September 25, the governor was replaced in the Samara region. Nikolai Merkushkin, who had been dismissed for several years in a row, nevertheless left: officially at his “own will”, but it is obvious that he was too strong an “allergen”. “The federal center got rid of him so as not to provoke conflicts,” political scientist Alexander Kynev believes. Deputy of the Samara Provincial Duma Mikhail Matveev adds: in the region after the resignation of the governor, "universal rejoicing." “Specifically, I can say about my feelings with the words from the song: “We brought this day as close as we could,” Matveev says to Novaya Gazeta.

meme governor

Merkushkin was called one of the most odious governors of the country - and in general it was for what. Arriving in the Samara region in 2012 after 17 years of ruling Mordovia, Merkushkin immediately launched a pipeline of scandals with his participation. The loudest were related to the economy: three poultry farms and several pig complexes were closed, AvtoVAZ's subsidiary AvtoVAZagregat disappeared. When asked about paying off the debts of the latter, Merkushkin answered simply: “Never.” Big problems arose with the construction of the stadium for the 2018 FIFA World Cup: the estimate grew faster than the stadium tiers, and by 2017, instead of 13 billion rubles, it amounted to 23 billion rubles. In addition, a year ago, Alexei Navalny showed the "estates on Rublyovka", which, according to FBK, belong to Merkushkin and his family and friends - a total of real estate worth 866 million rubles. At the same time, RBC in February 2017 estimated the region's public debt at 67.4 billion rubles, and the region itself, from a donor one in 2012, became deeply subsidized in 2017.

But Merkushkin earned his reputation not only for his achievements in the region's economy, but also for the acoustic support of this activity. The governor's speeches became local memes: Samara, in his opinion, is the focus of the CIA's interests, Galina Starovoitova was a State Department liaison, while the Americans hacked into the mail of the Samara regional administration in 2016. Merkushkin came up with the formula “I didn’t do it for the people, you yourself did it so that we won’t do anything for the people.” In addition, he is known for the term "Mordovian shell": 92-97% of the votes for the ruling party, which are regularly given by Mordovia in any election. “When Bolotnaya went, when everything was pumped up, they warmed up. They broke through the chains to take the Kremlin. They felt the smell of blood, how in Ukraine they took the building one by one. And if Mordovia had voted differently, what would have happened? They could lose everything, as in Ukraine, ”Merkushkin said in August last year. Actually, he also won his elections in 2014 in the Samara region with a result of more than 91% of the votes "for" - indicators comparable to neighboring Kazakhstan.

At the ceremony of farewell to the region, Merkushkin said that his departure is "perhaps a loss for the Samara region", although he himself may "delay": they say, "transitional period" and "transfer of cases." “But I don’t leave any critical, unresolved problems behind,” he said.

Changed to local

In principle, Merkushkin's resignation can be regarded as "a symbolic gesture that fits into a series of resignations that began last year," says Alexander Kynev. Now, moreover, the presidential elections are just around the corner. “The discontent of the inhabitants of the region, as in communicating vessels, extends to all verticals of power, so the actions of the federal center are justified,” the political scientist believes. It was necessary to bring down the irritation of the people, and therefore the unpopular governor was removed right now, deputy Matveev adds.

Merkushkin's new place of work is the president's special envoy for interaction with the World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples. According to experts, this, of course, is an honorary pension for Merkushkin, who was given the opportunity to save face for his “services to the regime” (for example, for the famous 106% of votes for “ United Russia" in 2007 in Mordovia). In addition, the peculiar sense of humor of the Presidential Administration also played, Matveev believes. “Merkushkin is known as a terry Mordovian nationalist and told everyone about the greatness of the Mordovian nation. Now he was given the opportunity for eight hours in a row in a purely Moksha language in a pleasant company to tell Mordovian tales, ”the Samara deputy ironically. At the same time, this position cannot be called completely ceremonial: the Finno-Ugric peoples have been perceived for many years as a potential source of separatist sentiments, and it’s no longer possible for Merkushkin to point at the CIA so easily.

So far, the former mayor of Samara Dmitry Azarov, who recently served as chairman of the committee on federal structure, regional policy, local self-government and affairs of the North in the Federation Council, has been appointed interim Merkushkin. Samara himself, Azarov made a career in the gas industry, and then went to the city administration under the then mayor Viktor Tarkhov. In 2008-2010, Azarov was the Minister of Nature Management, Forestry and Environmental Protection of the Samara Region, and then an ecological disaster occurred in Tolyatti, when more than 8 thousand hectares of forest burned down due to forest fires. Azarov's ministry did nothing to prevent the catastrophe, but the prosecutor's office then found no reason to hold Azarov accountable.

However, this story did not prevent Azarov from being elected mayor of Samara in 2010 - then he competed with the current head of the city, Viktor Tarkhov, and won with a score of 66.94% of the vote. In 2012, Azarov was one of the authors of the "municipal filter" for governors, at the same time he was mentioned in connection with the concept of "open government" - also as one of the creators. In 2014, Azarov was elected chairman of the All-Russian Council of Local Self-Government.

Formally next elections in the Samara region should take place in September 2018, but early voting will almost certainly be held. And the arrival of Azarov is still perceived by everyone with cautious optimism: he is local, he does not need time to build up, and in general style he is similar to the “young technocrats” who replaced governors last year. “Obviously, with the arrival of Azarov, the region is waiting for a “cleansing” from representatives of the Merkushkin team,” Mikhail Matveev believes.

In addition, adds Alexander Kynev, that this move may be quite sufficient to "respond to the society's need for renewal" - at least at the local level. It should be added here that Merkushkin's resignation may not be the only one: at the beginning of the week, Kommersant, citing sources in the Presidential Administration, also announced the possible resignation of at least nine more heads of regions, including Krasnoyarsk Territory and one or two entities in the North Caucasus. Nikolai Merkushkin also announced future resignations at his farewell briefing: he believes that now there is a trend towards rejuvenation of the heads of regions, and “it is necessary that the elite in the country understand this trend.”

Incomes of members of the Samara Cabinet of Ministers: how the scandal with the FBK and the confrontation with Ravil Ziganshin led to the loss of the richest official in the region

The analytical service of Realnoe Vremya studied the income and property declarations of the members of the government of the Samara region for 2016 and found out that, despite the optimization of management expenses announced by Governor Nikolai Merkushkin, the ministers' income increased on average due to real estate sales. Nevertheless, it still seriously lags behind the average income of members of the Tatarstan Cabinet of Ministers.

Owned - one garage

The annual income of the head of the region in 2016 amounted to 4.28 million rubles, and this is 8% less than a year earlier (it was 4.66 million). The fact is that the governor is fulfilling his own instruction - to optimize budget expenditures for the maintenance of civil servants, in 2016 these costs were cut by 10%, a similar reduction occurred in 2017. The income of the wife of the head in 2015 was an order of magnitude less than the governor's, but over the year they grew, and quite significantly - from 414 thousand rubles to 498 thousand.

Of the real estate objects, the governor owns only a 20-meter garage, in which, it should be noted, the Lada XRay has been patriotically located since last year. In the Luxe / Prestige configuration, this car costs about 730,000 rubles. Previously, Merkushkin owned the Lada Largus for several years, which he sold in 2015. After that, it turned out that the members of the regional government in their entirety were ignoring the products of the Togliatti VAZ - they all did not have a single car of a local manufacturer. Apparently, Merkushkin decided to influence his subordinates by personal example (looking ahead, we note that he did not act).

But in the use of Nikolai Ivanovich, the residence of the governor with an area of ​​​​649 square meters. m, located within the city in a park area. An even greater “but” lies in a variety of real estate, registered as the individual property of the spouse. This includes a residential building (378 sq. m.), two apartments (65 and 54 sq. m.), a land plot for individual housing construction (1842 sq. m.), land of settlements (807 sq. m.) and outbuildings (180 sq. m. .m). The garage, as the only property of the governor, looks especially pitiful if we remember how "lucky" Merkushkin's numerous relatives in Mordovia are - brothers, sons, nephews and others. But this is a topic for another study.

The delay in the construction of the Samara Arena for the 2018 World Cup did not prevent Merkushkin from staying in his chair. Photo volga.news

As you know, Merkushkin got into the anti-top 8 governors, which in April was compiled by the Center for the Development of Regional Policy (the so-called "Kremlin rating", which evaluates not the effectiveness of the governor's work, but the likelihood of his resignation). Nevertheless, he managed to stay in his chair. Neither the conflict with the local elites, nor the rallies for the resignation of the governor, nor the delay in the construction of the Samara Arena for the 2018 World Cup, nor the general background of the degradation of the territory prevented this. As political consultant Pyotr Bystrov suggested in an interview with Realnoe Vremya, until March 2018, Merkushkin will definitely sit through - as a person who knows how to give results in elections. Moreover, almost 2.5 million voters live in the region under his jurisdiction.

Interestingly, as possible replacements for Nikolai Ivanovich as head of the subject, experts named, among other things, the names of two current members of the regional government - the vice-governor and head of the administration of the governor Dmitry Ovchinnikov and the deputy chairman of the government - Minister of Construction Alexander Balandin.

If the first had a relatively decent income in 2016 - 3.29 million rubles, then the second earned at the level of an ordinary minister - “only” 1.58 million (for comparison, the income of the Minister of Culture of the Samara Region, Sergey Filippov, amounted to 1.59 million) . However, this is due to the fact that almost all of 2016 (and two years before) Balandin worked as the head of the Volzhsky district of the Samara region.

Note that Ovchinnikov, his wife and four children do not own any residential property. And only the head of the family has non-residential real estate, namely two land plots of 1628 and 700 sq. m and a garage (larger than the governor's - as much as 33.5 sq. m). A large vice-governor's family lives in a residential building (674.7 sq. m.) and a dacha (178 sq. m.), which are in their use.

Dmitry Ovchinnikov was named as a possible replacement for Merkushkin as head. Photo nesluhi.info

Leaders of sells

Most among the members of the Samara regional government in 2016, the vice-governor - Minister of Economic Development, Investments and Trade Alexander Kobenko earned 13.97 million rubles. True, the lion's share (10.4 million rubles) of this result was ensured by the sale of property - real estate (an apartment of 105 square meters for 8.5 million rubles) and movable (a Toyota Land Cruiser car for 1.9 million rubles) . Thus, the official stayed with his wife's "Hyundai" (unless, of course, he bought a new car already this year, and if you don't count the hopelessly lost "Audi", which has been listed as stolen since 2004). But the advanced Deputy Prime Minister has a "motor vehicle" "Harley-Davidson" and a boat "Bayliner". Despite a decent background associated with VAZ (Kobenko worked at AVTOVAZ for seven years, leaving him as director of finance in 2012, and in 2013 he published the book "People and Automobiles" dedicated to the history of domestic motorsport), the minister, as you can see, he also prefers foreign-made vehicles.

The next largest income is the vice-governor (without the ministerial portfolio) Alexander Fetisov - 8.88 million rubles. At the same time, in 2015 he earned only 2.09 million rubles. True, until September 2015, Fetisov headed the Samara City Duma, and only the rest of 2015 (and almost all of 2016) worked as deputy prime minister, and on December 19 last year he became vice governor. But more importantly, this official in 2016 also solved his housing problem. His last declaration lost two apartments - 63 and 49 sq. m, as well as real estate such as a garage of 14 sq. m and a plot of land for a garage of 16 sq. meters.

Seriously improved his financial position and Deputy Prime Minister - Head of the Department of Information Technology and Communications Stanislav Kazarin, who earned 5.6 million rubles. A year earlier, it was 3.57 million rubles less, and this difference is most likely also due to the sale of an apartment with an area of ​​60 square meters.

The leaders include the only woman among the members of the Samara Cabinet - Marina Antimonova. Photo volga.news

The leaders with the amount of 5.3 million rubles include the only woman among the members of the Samara Cabinet of Ministers - the Minister of Social, Demographic and Family Policy Marina Antimonova, who recently has an above-average income in the government (in 2015 it was even more - 8.1 million rubles). ). Previously, the official did not stand out from the ranks of her colleagues, but two years ago her family again seriously took up real estate: a residential building with an area of ​​​​238 square meters disappeared from the declaration for 2015. m, which was jointly owned with her husband, and last year the family sold an apartment of 90 sq. m, also jointly owned with her husband. But now the minister and her spouse have a joint property of a residential building with an area of ​​422.5 square meters. meters.

Rich wives and a non-poor husband

The prime minister of the government of the Samara region and concurrently the first vice-governor Alexander Nefedov earned a rather modest 3.24 million rubles for his position. In 2015, he had 4.07 million, so Alexander Petrovich also donated personal income to support the campaign to reduce management costs. At the same time, the second person in the region is the undisputed leader of the list in terms of total family income. Thanks to Nefedov's wife, Tatyana Peremyshlina, regional director of the Samara office of PJSC Promsvyazbank, their total income amounted to 23.5 million rubles (in 2015 - 19.2 million).

Only three spouses of members of the Samara government, in addition to Peremyshlina, earned more than a million rubles last year. This is the husband of Marina Antimonova - 3.97 million rubles (recall, he received his share from the sale of real estate), the wife of the deputy chairman of the government - Minister of Industry and Technology Sergei Bezrukov - 1.44 million (Bezrukov himself earned 3.66 million) and the wife of the already mentioned Alexander Balandin - 1.11 million

Unfortunately, the list of declarations for 2016 does not include Alexei Grishin, the vice-governor and minister of construction of the region, who was promoted to Roskapstroy in December last year. This is entirely Merkushkin's creature, he is the son of a close friend of Nikolai Ivanovich - Viktor Grishin, rector of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. Grishin Jr. arrived in Samara in July 2012, two months after Merkushkin's "accession". He was considered the richest official in the region and, by the way, was a defendant in one of the FBK investigations, which discovered that the official owned a land plot and a house on Rublevsky Highway worth 360 million rubles.

Aleksey Grishin was considered the richest official in the region and, by the way, was a defendant in one of the FBK investigations. Photo stolica-s.su

It should be added to this that, perhaps, Grishin's resignation was connected with the conflict history around the very stadium "Samara Arena", which is being built by the PSO "Kazan". Due to the delay in the schedule, the Samara authorities even initiated the replacement of the general contractor with a local company, but the attempt failed - Ravil Ziganshin remained at the mega-construction.

In 2015, Grishin declared 13.35 million rubles of income and two apartments in individual ownership - 163 and 155 sq. meters. At the same time, the wife of the ex-minister Yulia, director of Saranskneft LLC, showed income of 25.36 million rubles (the total income of the spouses, therefore, amounted to 38.71 million rubles) and several real estate objects, among which a house with an area of ​​1747 square meters stands out. m and a garage of 242 sq. meters.

Interestingly, the average annual income of ministers in the Samara region (3.80 million rubles) is as much as 12% less than the same indicator for members of the Tatarstan Cabinet (4.31 million). However, this has its own logic - at least based on a comparison of the expenditure part of the budget of these regions: in Tatarstan in 2017 it is 194 billion rubles, in the Samara region - 136 billion. Let's also take into account that last year members of the Samara government actively sold your property. Otherwise, their average income in 2016 would not exceed the income of the previous year (3.80 million versus 3.14 million), but, on the contrary, would be inferior to it, taking into account the “optimization campaign”.

Rustem Shakirov