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

Recently, the 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 no longer relies on the son of the ex-governor of the Samara region, Nikolai Merkushkin. Earlier - in 2016 - a place in the personnel reserve was lost by his close friend - Alexey Grishin (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 elite called them the future masters of the republic.

According to official data, Alexey Merkushkin was born on June 20, 1978 in Saransk. Fluent in English. He is married and has two sons. In 2000 he graduated from the Moscow State University. N.P. Ogarev with a degree in Jurisprudence. In 2004, he graduated from the Russian Academy of Economics named after G.V. Plekhanov with a PhD in Economics. He began his career in 2001 as a legal adviser of OJSC "Lamzur S". In February 2001 - Deputy General Director of OJSC "Lamzur S", since March 2001 - General Director of OJSC "Lamzur S". On December 5, 2012, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Targeted Programs of the Republic of Moldova. Rumor has it that Alexei will not stay in this chair and will definitely "shoot" higher. But, according to "Stolitsa S", 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, Alexei has become famous as the wealthiest 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 sums, but not the inhabitants of Mordovia, who are well aware of where the capital came from.

Nikolay Merkushkin and Alexey Grishin during their work in the Samara region

There were rumors that Nikolai Merkushkin would like to see his own man in the post of the head of region-13. Allegedly, it was for this purpose that Aleksey Grishin and Aleksey Merkushkin were "raised". But something went wrong. The Kremlin drastically changed its personnel policy, taking a course to fight nepotism and clannishness in power. Currently, Grishin holds a good position in the Ministry of Construction and Housing and Utilities of Russia. With an iron hand, he manages an entire department of urban planning and architecture. "Capital C" could write a lot about this outstanding official, but the time has not come yet. And Alexei Merkushkin, apparently, after the 2018 World Cup, will return to big business, where he previously showed himself as a successful, forward-looking manager who knows how to select a team, set real tasks for him and achieve results. There are literally legends about Alexei's outstanding abilities. 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

Income of members of the Samara Cabinet of Ministers: how the scandal with 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 that, despite the optimization of management costs announced by Governor Nikolai Merkushkin, the ministers' income on average increased due to the sale of real estate. Nevertheless, it still lags seriously behind the average income of members of the Tatarstan Cabinet.

The property has one garage

The annual income of the head of the region amounted to 4.28 million rubles in 2016, and this is less than a year earlier, by 8% (it was 4.66 million). The fact is that the governor is carrying out his own order - 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 spouse of the head in 2015 was an order of magnitude less than the governor's, but over the year they increased, and quite significantly - from 414 thousand rubles to 498 thousand.

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

But Nikolai Ivanovich uses the governor's residence with an area of \u200b\u200b649 sq. m, located within the city in a park zone. Even more "but" is a variety of real estate, registered in 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 for 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” many of Merkushkin's relatives in Mordovia are - brothers, sons, nephews and others. But this is already a topic for another study.

Failure to meet the deadlines for the construction of 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 made the Center for the Development of Regional Policy (the so-called "Kremlin rating", which assesses not the effectiveness of the governor, but the likelihood of his resignation). Nevertheless, he managed to stay in his chair. This was not prevented by the conflict with the local elites, or the rallies for the resignation of the governor, or the disruption of the construction schedule for the Samara Arena for the 2018 World Cup, or the general background of territory degradation. As political consultant Pyotr Bystrov suggested in an interview with Realnoe Vremya, until March 2018 Merkushkin will definitely sit still - 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, experts named two current members of the regional government - the vice-governor and head of the governor's administration Dmitry Ovchinnikov and the deputy chairman of the government - Minister of Construction Alexander Balandin, as possible replacements for Nikolai Ivanovich as the head of the subject.

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 was 1.59 million) ... However, this is due to the fact that almost the entire 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 with an area of \u200b\u200b1628 and 700 sq. m and a garage (more governor's - as much as 33.5 sq. m). The large vice-governor's family lives in a residential building (674.7 sq. M.) And in a dacha (178 sq. M.), Which are in her use.

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

Leaders of sells

The most among the members of the Samara regional government in 2016 earned the vice-governor - Minister of Economic Development, Investments and Trade Alexander Kobenko - 13.97 million rubles. True, the lion's share (10.4 million rubles) of this result was provided by the sale of property - real estate (apartments of 105 sq. M. For 8.5 million rubles) and movable (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 one does not count the hopelessly lost Audi, which has been stolen since 2004). But the advanced deputy prime minister has a "motorcycle" Harley-Davidson and a boat "Bayliner". Despite a decent background associated with VAZ (Kobenko worked at JSC AVTOVAZ for seven years, leaving him as director of finance in 2012, and in 2013 published the book People and Cars, dedicated to the history of domestic motorsport), the minister, as we can see, he also prefers vehicles of foreign production.

The next in terms of income is the vice-governor (without the ministerial portfolio) Alexander Fetisov - 8.88 million rubles. Moreover, in 2015 he earned only 2.09 million rubles. True, until September 2015, Fetisov headed the city duma of Samara and only the rest of 2015 (and almost the whole of 2016) worked as deputy prime minister, and on December 19 last year he became vice governor. But more importantly, this official also decided his housing issue in 2016. 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 with an area of \u200b\u200b16 sq. meters.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the Information Technology and Communications Department Stanislav Kazarin, who earned 5.6 million rubles, also seriously improved his financial situation. 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 \u200b\u200b60 "squares".

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

Among the leaders with the amount of 5.3 million rubles is the only woman among the members of the Samara Cabinet - Minister of Social, Demographic and Family Policy Marina Antimonova, who has recently had an income in the government above the average (in 2015 there were 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 took up real estate seriously: a residential building with an area of \u200b\u200b238 square meters disappeared from the declaration for 2015. m, which was in common joint ownership with her spouse, and last year the family sold an apartment of 90 sq. m, also co-owned with her husband. But now in the common joint property of the minister and her spouse there is a residential building with an area of \u200b\u200b422.5 sq. meters.

Rich wives and a wealthy husband

The prime minister of the government of the Samara region and concurrently the first vice-governor, Alexander Nefedov, earned 3.24 million rubles, rather modest for his position. In 2015, he had 4.07 million, so Alexander Petrovich also donated his personal income to support the campaign to reduce administrative costs. Moreover, 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 Prime Minister - Minister of Industry and Technology Sergei Bezrukov - 1.44 million (Bezrukov himself earned 3.66 million) and the wife of the already mentioned Alexandra Balandina - 1.11 million

Unfortunately, the list of declarations for 2016 is missing Aleksey Grishin, the vice-governor and minister of construction of the region, who went on a promotion to Roskapstroy last December. This is wholly and completely 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 investigations of the FBK, which discovered a land plot and a house on Rublevskoye highway worth 360 million rubles in the property of the official.

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

To this it should be added that, perhaps, Grishin's resignation was associated with a conflict history around the very Samara Arena stadium, which is being built by the PSO Kazan. Due to the lag 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 megastrok.

For 2015, Grishin declared 13.35 million rubles of income and two individually owned apartments - 163 and 155 sq. meters. At the same time, the wife of the ex-minister Yulia, director of LLC Saranskneft, showed revenues of 25.36 million rubles (the total income of the spouses, thus, amounted to 38.71 million rubles) and several real estate objects, among which a house with an area of \u200b\u200b1,747 sq. m and a garage with an area of \u200b\u200b242 sq. meters.

Interestingly, the average annual income of ministers in the Samara region (3.80 million rubles) is 12% less than the same indicator for members of the Tatarstan Cabinet of Ministers (4.31 million). However, this has its own logic - at least based on a comparison of the expenditure side of the budget of these regions: in Tatarstan in 2017 it is 194 billion rubles, in the Samara region - 136 billion. We will also take into account that last year members of the Samara government were actively selling your property. Otherwise, their average income in 2016 would not have exceeded 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

Abnormal governor

Nikolai Merkushkin left, leaving the Samara region defenseless in front of the CIA and the State Department

Yuri Strelets / RIA Novosti

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

Dulles Plan Whistleblower

Merkushkin, 66, lived a long political life. In recent years, he flashed on the pages of the media and on 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, your debts will never be paid off! Those who warm you up, ask them ... That's when, among other things, the American ambassador came, he came to warm up just these people, and then they showed them all over the world for a month! " - This statement was made by Merkushkin to the employees of Avtovaz.

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, the late State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova was called by Merkushkin a “State Department liaison”. And the publications about himself by opposition politician Alexei Navalny, Merkushkin declared part of the "Dulles plan" (the mythical concept of the US struggle against the USSR).

“Why is he suddenly now, well, almost every day, writes about Samara, writes about me. Why? Because this chaos that Dulles has, everything is mixed up, everything is messed up in their heads, they really want to keep this chaos. This chaos is needed when the time comes to throw the match, this chaos will immediately result in a fire, "said Merkushkin to the amazed Samara residents (Navalny at that time released a small video about Merkushkin; it stated that the Samara governor and his entourage have houses on Rublevskoe highway worth millions of dollars).

After the protest actions on March 23, 2017, in which Samara youth also took part, Merkushkin met with students. The meeting participants were shown the film "No Extremism", filmed by the local TV channel "Gubernia", where opposition rallies were equated with the Maidan and the "Arab Spring". The filmmakers urged the viewer to prevent the Maidan in the Samara region by supporting Merkushkin. A blind student spoke openly against Merkushkin, starting to talk about bad roads and social problems. The governor replied that critics were being "sent" to him, the student was taken 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 is being hindered by the US State Department, that the head of the region himself is one of the main goals of the CIA and that pensions in Samara have grown to 70 thousand rubles (the governor's theses were replicated on social networks by students who attended the event).

Back in July, the interlocutors of Merkushkin's website were one of the main candidates for resignation in the autumn wave. And in general, they have been talking about the resignation of the odious governor for several years.

In 2016, Merkushkin came into conflict with past administrators of internal politics, led by the then first deputy head of the administration, Vyacheslav Volodin, recalls the source, a website close to the presidential administration. Then the results of the primaries of "United Russia" 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 elections to the district councils in the Samara region: self-nominated candidates went as “the governor's team,” and some United Russia members demonstratively distanced themselves from Merkushkin.

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

Mordovian autocrat

Nikolai Merkushkin began 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 Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, but lost the election to Nikolai Biryukov. In 1994, Merkushkin was elected a deputy of the State Assembly of Mordovia, in 1995 he headed it and in the fall of the same year was elected to the post of head of Mordovia. He held this position for five consecutive terms.

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

In May 2012, President Vladimir Putin appointed Merkushkin as acting head of the Samara region. Later, in 2014, Merkushkin went to early re-elections 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", the party received only 50.75% of the vote in the elections to the State Duma in the Samara region.

Grigory Sysoev / RIA Novosti

“Merkushkin, like many governors who came to power in the 90s, had a hard time with the conflict of changing political reality,” says a former federal official. - Some of the governors overcame this conflict with dignity, like the ex-head of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev or the head of the Belgorod region Yevgeny Savchenko. Someone gave it hard, like the ex-mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov. In the 90s, the governor was perceived as a full-fledged owner of the territory, almost as a sovereign. He built for himself all the processes, privatization was in progress. In modern realities, a governor is a high-status official who heads a 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 description”.

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 on celebrating his anniversary, which, according to official income, Fursov could not afford. Khinshtein also criticized the regional government for solving the problems of defrauded 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 is now continuing his career in the Russian Guard.

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

The same property, according to the interlocutor, was the conflict between Merkushkin and the current interim, 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, the post in the Federation Council is generally considered to be a link and an honorable resignation, and in Azarov's case this was exactly the case.

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

“Independent mayor and outside governor, local and Varangian. What else is there to add? One of them had to leave for Moscow for a while, "the head of the Political Expert Group, Konstantin Kalachev, 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 on extortion charges. Begun told the investigation that for several years for 300 thousand rubles a month he published incriminating materials on Samara politicians and officials on the direct orders of Merkushkin, including Azarov and Khinshtein.

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

“When the governor is in a difficult situation, you should not draw undue attention to yourself by creating an additional negative information background,” said Gleb Kuznetsov, a 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. Over the past year, experts openly predicted his resignation in each "wave", that is, in the fall of 2016 and in the spring of 2017. However, the last straw, according to an interlocutor close to the presidential administration, was the conflict between Merkushkin and the influential state corporation Rostec, which owns shares of a number of large companies in the Samara region.

Most experts agree that the moral of Nikolai Merkushkin's story is as follows: if a person in the post of the head of one region looked adequate, it is not a fact that he will be able to successfully lead any other region. And if a super-authoritarian model has been built in one region, 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 at the Information Policy Development Fund. - In principle, the history of the leadership of the Samara region by Merkushkin resembled a modified history of his leadership of Mordovia. It all started with “strangling in the arms” of the local elites, when at first he showed a willingness to negotiate, and then he annihilated potential opponents. In the Samara region, during the appointment of Merkushkin, he met with everyone, and even the opposition felt some hopes, but then they all were 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, the management was closed on one person, all the rest were technical advisers. But such regimes have a territorial limitation. A personalized system has limits to its effectiveness. What was possible to do 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, the resignation of Merkushkin is just the most intelligible 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 strategist 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 Togliatti, Samara, Syzran. In the Samara region, all the leading financial and industrial groups of the country are represented, headed by people who communicate with persons with a status higher than Merkushkin. That is why his approach failed, as an entire elite coalition was built up against him, ”sums up Matveychev.

Andrei Kolyadin, head of regional programs of the EISI, ex-deputy presidential envoy to the Urals Federal District, believes that Merkushkin's main problem was that he, having lived in the Samara region for six years, did not manage to love her and become his own in it.

“Arriving 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, love it. He, having arrived in Samara, did not fall in love with the region for six years, ”says Kolyadin.

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

“Probably, Merkushkin would like to take another post. The most coveted 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, they chose such a position, ”the former federal official says.

Associate Professor of the Institute of Social Sciences of the RANEPA Ekaterina Shulman notes that Merkushkin's departure from the governor's post without a criminal case is already not bad at the present time, and the provision of 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 he 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 out of the governor's chair, and in some ways it is a manifestation of "apparatus humor."

Legacy: Can't Leave Change?

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

Azarov is a native of Samara. Before joining 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 in Rodina, then in Sergei Mironov's Party of Life and then in his Fair Russia, went to a new term. Azarov nominated against Tarkhov from 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, evaluates Azarov's appointment positively.

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

Mikhail Klimentiev / RIA Novosti

Another interlocutor of the newspaper, close to the administration, is less friendly towards the new governor and says that the politician from Azarov is strong, he catches and fulfills all signals 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. The incumbent head of state Vladimir Putin is expected to 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 exam for the interim governor Dmitry Azarov, who will be elected to his post on a single voting day in the fall of 2018.

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

“In a sense, they tried to transfer the 'Mordovian electoral anomaly' to the Samara region. The region was negatively affected, although the authorities still had to react to scandals and resistance. Still, it didn't work out to make Mordovia out of the Samara region, ”notes Alexander Kynev.

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

“Merkushkin in the gubernatorial elections received an ultra-high result, which clearly did not correspond to his real popularity. Now the region is in a twofold 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 compensate quantitatively the results of voting 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 it is now unclear whether it will be able to function without him and, most importantly, whether it is necessary to maintain caricature-high results in its current form or, for the purity of elections, to demand more realistic figures for the Samara region, where there is protest sentiments in Samara or Tolyatti, ”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 of his own free 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 analyst Alexander Kynev said. Mikhail Matveev, a deputy of the Samara Provincial Duma, adds: there is “general rejoicing” in the region after the resignation of the governor. “Specifically, I can say about my feelings with the words from the song:“ We brought this day closer as we could, ”Matveev says to Novaya.

Governor meme

Merkushkin was called one of the most odious governors of the country - and in general there was a reason. Coming to the Samara region in 2012 after 17 years of ruling Mordovia, Merkushkin immediately launched a conveyor of scandals with his participation. The most notorious ones were connected with the economy: three poultry farms and several pig farms were closed, AvtoVAZ's subsidiary AvtoVAZagregat disappeared. When asked about the repayment of the latter's debts, Merkushkin answered simply: "Never." Big problems arose with the construction of the stadium for the 2018 FIFA World Cup: the budget 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 Rublevka", which, according to FBK, belong to Merkushkin and his family and friends - a total of 866 million rubles worth of real estate. At the same time, RBC in February 2017 estimated the state debt of the region at 67.4 billion rubles, and the region itself from a donor in 2012 became deeply subsidized in 2017.

But Merkushkin earned his reputation not only for achievements in the region's economy, but also for the acoustic accompaniment of these activities. The governor's speeches became local memes: Samara, in his opinion, is the focus of the CIA's interests, Galina Starovoitova was a liaison for the State Department, while the Americans hacked 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 by the term "Mordovian carapace": 92-97% of the votes for the party in power, which are regularly given by Mordovia in any elections. “When Bolotnaya went, when everything was uploaded, they warmed up. They broke through the chains to take the Kremlin. The smell of blood was felt as in Ukraine to take a building one by one. And if Mordovia would not have voted that way, what would have happened? They could have lost everything, as in Ukraine, ”said Merkushkin in August last year. In fact, he also won his elections in 2014 in the Samara region with more than 91% of the votes in favor - indicators comparable to neighboring Kazakhstan.

At the farewell ceremony with the region, Merkushkin said that his departure "may be a loss for the Samara region," although he himself may "be delayed": they say, "a transitional period" and "transfer of affairs." “But I do not leave any critical, unsolved problems behind me,” he said.

Changed to local

In principle, the resignation of Merkushkin can be regarded as "a symbolic gesture that fits into a series of resignations that began last year," says Alexander Kynev. Besides, the presidential elections are on the way. “The discontent of the inhabitants of the region as in communicating vessels extends to all verticals of power, therefore 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, adds Deputy Matveyev.

Merkushkin's new place of work is the president's special representative for interaction with the World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples. According to experts, this is, of course, an honorable pension for Merkushkin, who was given the opportunity to save face for “services to the regime” (for example, for the famous 106% of votes for “United Russia” in 2007 in Mordovia). In addition, a peculiar sense of humor of the presidential administration also played, Matveev said. “Merkushkin is known as a terry Mordovian nationalist and told everyone about the greatness of the Mordovian nation. Now he was given the opportunity to tell Mordovian fairy tales for eight hours in a row in a purely Moksha language in a pleasant company, ”the Samara deputy sneers. At the same time, it is impossible to call this position completely ceremonial: the Finno-Ugric peoples have been perceived for many years as a potential source of separatist sentiments, and it will not be so easy for Merkushkin to nod at the CIA.

For the time being, former mayor of Samara Dmitry Azarov has been appointed acting Merkushkin, who recently served as chairman of the committee on federal structure, regional policy, local self-government and Northern affairs in the Federation Council. 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 happened in Togliatti, when more than 8 thousand hectares of forest burned down due to forest fires. Azarov's ministry did nothing to prevent the disaster, but the prosecutor's office then found no reason to bring Azarov to justice.

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 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” - as well as one of the creators. In 2014, Azarov was elected chairman of the All-Russian Council of Local Self-Government.

Formally, the 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: it is local, it does not need time to swing, and in terms of general style it is similar to the “young technocrats” who were replaced by governors last year. “Obviously, with the arrival of Azarov, the region will be“ cleansed ”from the representatives of the Merkushkin's team,” said Mikhail Matveev.

In addition, adds Alexander Kynev, this move may be quite sufficient to “respond to the society's need for renewal,” at least at the local level. Here it should be added 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 the Krasnoyarsk Territory and one or two regions in the North Caucasus. Nikolai Merkushkin also said about future resignations at his farewell briefing: he believes that now there is a trend towards the rejuvenation of the heads of regions, and "it is necessary that this trend is understood by the elite in the country."

Income of members of the Samara Cabinet of Ministers: how the scandal with 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 that, despite the optimization of management costs announced by Governor Nikolai Merkushkin, the ministers' income on average increased due to the sale of real estate. Nevertheless, it still lags seriously behind the average income of members of the Tatarstan Cabinet.

The property has one garage

The annual income of the head of the region amounted to 4.28 million rubles in 2016, and this is less than a year earlier, by 8% (it was 4.66 million). The fact is that the governor is carrying out his own order - 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 spouse of the head in 2015 was an order of magnitude less than the governor's, but over the year they increased, and quite significantly - from 414 thousand rubles to 498 thousand.

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

But Nikolai Ivanovich uses the governor's residence with an area of \u200b\u200b649 sq. m, located within the city in a park zone. Even more "but" is a variety of real estate, registered in 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 for 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” many of Merkushkin's relatives in Mordovia are - brothers, sons, nephews and others. But this is already a topic for another study.

Failure to meet the deadlines for the construction of 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 made the Center for the Development of Regional Policy (the so-called "Kremlin rating", which assesses not the effectiveness of the governor, but the likelihood of his resignation). Nevertheless, he managed to stay in his chair. This was not prevented by the conflict with the local elites, or the rallies for the resignation of the governor, or the disruption of the construction schedule for the Samara Arena for the 2018 World Cup, or the general background of territory degradation. As political consultant Pyotr Bystrov suggested in an interview with Realnoe Vremya, until March 2018 Merkushkin will definitely sit still - 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, experts named two current members of the regional government - the vice-governor and head of the governor's administration Dmitry Ovchinnikov and the deputy chairman of the government - Minister of Construction Alexander Balandin, as possible replacements for Nikolai Ivanovich as the head of the subject.

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 was 1.59 million) ... However, this is due to the fact that almost the entire 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 with an area of \u200b\u200b1628 and 700 sq. m and a garage (more governor's - as much as 33.5 sq. m). The large vice-governor's family lives in a residential building (674.7 sq. M.) And in a dacha (178 sq. M.), Which are in her use.

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

Leaders of sells

The most among the members of the Samara regional government in 2016 earned the vice-governor - Minister of Economic Development, Investments and Trade Alexander Kobenko - 13.97 million rubles. True, the lion's share (10.4 million rubles) of this result was provided by the sale of property - real estate (apartments of 105 sq. M. For 8.5 million rubles) and movable (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 one does not count the hopelessly lost Audi, which has been stolen since 2004). But the advanced deputy prime minister has a "motorcycle" Harley-Davidson and a boat "Bayliner". Despite a decent background associated with VAZ (Kobenko worked at JSC AVTOVAZ for seven years, leaving him as director of finance in 2012, and in 2013 published the book People and Cars, dedicated to the history of domestic motorsport), the minister, as we can see, he also prefers vehicles of foreign production.

The next in terms of income is the vice-governor (without the ministerial portfolio) Alexander Fetisov - 8.88 million rubles. Moreover, in 2015 he earned only 2.09 million rubles. True, until September 2015, Fetisov headed the city duma of Samara and only the rest of 2015 (and almost the whole of 2016) worked as deputy prime minister, and on December 19 last year he became vice governor. But more importantly, this official also decided his housing issue in 2016. 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 with an area of \u200b\u200b16 sq. meters.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the Information Technology and Communications Department Stanislav Kazarin, who earned 5.6 million rubles, also seriously improved his financial situation. 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 \u200b\u200b60 "squares".

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

Among the leaders with the amount of 5.3 million rubles is the only woman among the members of the Samara Cabinet - Minister of Social, Demographic and Family Policy Marina Antimonova, who has recently had an income in the government above the average (in 2015 there were 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 took up real estate seriously: a residential building with an area of \u200b\u200b238 square meters disappeared from the declaration for 2015. m, which was in common joint ownership with her spouse, and last year the family sold an apartment of 90 sq. m, also co-owned with her husband. But now in the common joint property of the minister and her spouse there is a residential building with an area of \u200b\u200b422.5 sq. meters.

Rich wives and a wealthy husband

The prime minister of the government of the Samara region and concurrently the first vice-governor, Alexander Nefedov, earned 3.24 million rubles, rather modest for his position. In 2015, he had 4.07 million, so Alexander Petrovich also donated his personal income to support the campaign to reduce administrative costs. Moreover, 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 Prime Minister - Minister of Industry and Technology Sergei Bezrukov - 1.44 million (Bezrukov himself earned 3.66 million) and the wife of the already mentioned Alexandra Balandina - 1.11 million

Unfortunately, the list of declarations for 2016 is missing Aleksey Grishin, the vice-governor and minister of construction of the region, who went on a promotion to Roskapstroy last December. This is wholly and completely 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 investigations of the FBK, which discovered a land plot and a house on Rublevskoye highway worth 360 million rubles in the property of the official.

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

To this it should be added that, perhaps, Grishin's resignation was associated with a conflict history around the very Samara Arena stadium, which is being built by the PSO Kazan. Due to the lag 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 megastrok.

For 2015, Grishin declared 13.35 million rubles of income and two individually owned apartments - 163 and 155 sq. meters. At the same time, the wife of the ex-minister Yulia, director of LLC Saranskneft, showed revenues of 25.36 million rubles (the total income of the spouses, thus, amounted to 38.71 million rubles) and several real estate objects, among which a house with an area of \u200b\u200b1,747 sq. m and a garage with an area of \u200b\u200b242 sq. meters.

Interestingly, the average annual income of ministers in the Samara region (3.80 million rubles) is 12% less than the same indicator for members of the Tatarstan Cabinet of Ministers (4.31 million). However, this has its own logic - at least based on a comparison of the expenditure side of the budget of these regions: in Tatarstan in 2017 it is 194 billion rubles, in the Samara region - 136 billion. We will also take into account that last year members of the Samara government were actively selling your property. Otherwise, their average income in 2016 would not have exceeded 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