Evgeniy Savchenko leaves. Have corruption scandals shaken the rating of Belgorod Region Governor Evgeny Savchenko? But how did you get that amount?

The arrest of the governor of the Kirov region, Nikita Belykh, gave rise to a new wave of speculation in the media about what are the criteria for selecting the head of the region for nomination for the role of “sacred victim.” Most experts agree that the criteria for assessing the effectiveness of governors have changed dramatically.

In the context of a difficult international situation and economic sanctions, the economy comes to the fore. The subsidized regions are now receiving the closest attention. It is difficult to classify the Belgorod region as prosperous in this context. Its debt (45 billion rubles) has long exceeded its own income and is one of the highest in the country and the highest in the Central Federal District.

Governor Yevgeny Savchenko, being a long-liver in his post (he has headed the region since 1993), introduced an authoritarian system of governance in the region, controlling business, social and political life, and even local criminal communities. Businesses are squeezed out of unwanted entrepreneurs either through the hands of bandits or with the help of law enforcement agencies, and enterprises are ruined. Persons close to the governor receive government subsidies, enterprises, land and other assets. On the one hand, having provided a certain positive picture and stability in the eyes of the federal center, Savchenko for a long time almost became an example for the other heads of territories. On the other hand, today the situation has changed - for effective import substitution (state task No. 1) it is necessary to encourage, nurture and nurture entrepreneurial initiative, and not nip it in the bud. Then the region’s economy will get out of debt, and government problems will be solved.

The first bell for Savchenko

However, Governor Yevgeny Savchenko, apparently, does not yet want to change taking into account the new realities. That is why the first bell rang for him personally. At the beginning of 2016, ONF activists updated the story of the sale of state agricultural enterprises to structures close to the governor, and sent inspection materials to law enforcement agencies. Let us recall that it was with criticism of the Popular Front that the processes of resignation and criminal prosecution of regional heads began if the governors ignored the comments of pro-Kremlin activists. And even the fact that the socio-economic situation in the region (such as in the Komi Republic) and the activities of the governor were assessed quite highly did not save him from the initiation of criminal cases and high-profile resignations.

Of course, Evgeny Savchenko’s services to the federal center are significant and significant. However, the level of corruption in the Belgorod region, according to experts, exceeds the all-Russian indicators by an order of magnitude. And the level of crime in the economic sphere seems to be one of the highest in the country. Here are just a few examples.

Merger of crime and government

In 2005, then Deputy Governor Vladimir Zotov proposed to a farmer from the Borisov region, Valery Vakulenko, to sell eight agricultural buildings, in the construction of which the farmer had invested tens of millions, for a million rubles. Having refused, the farmer literally the next day received a criminal case for tax evasion and went to prison for ten months. He managed to fight off illegal criminal prosecution, but the business, which he was one of the first to create back in the Soviet Union in the form of an agricultural cooperative back in the late 80s, could not be restored. But the farmer Vakulenko, who went through the school of Soviet cooperation, could make a real and significant contribution to solving one of the most important government tasks - import substitution. And the governor’s ally, who ruined the farmer, Vladimir Zotov, is now the chairman of the Belgorod Regional Duma. Has an annual income of over 800 million rubles. How many farms did he ruin and how many farmers rotted in prison to achieve such a level of prosperity?

Or another example - the Energomash plant. In the 2000s, the company was part of a group of companies of the same name, owned by Alexander Stepanov. Stepanov was friends with the Belgorod authorities: in 2007, the head of Energomash donated the Sosnovka sanatorium to the city, which was on the balance sheet of Energomashcorporation. However, this did not save him from criminal prosecution. In 2012, he was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison due to unresolved obligations to Sberbank. After this, 49% of “Energomash (Belgorod) - BZEM” became the property of the Urban District “City of Belgorod”, and another 2% ended up in the hands of the previously unknown LLC “Industry”. How did this happen? Very simple. On November 30, 2011, the Arbitration Court of the Belgorod Region satisfied the claim of the Belgorod administration against this company of Stepanov. Officials complained that the local committee of property and land relations was not indicated in the register of shareholders of the enterprise. Now the right of the Belgorod city administration to be considered a full shareholder of Energomash (Belgorod)-BZEM CJSC has been confirmed by the court. The company, successful before the conviction of the previous owner (at the end of 2013, showed a net profit of 1 billion rubles), was already bankrupt in 2014.

One of the owners of Energomash’s assets was the governor’s son-in-law and probably also his wallet, Gennady Bobritsky, who worked in the 2000s as deputy chairman of the government administration. Today he is a co-owner of a number of enterprises together with members of local organized crime groups and, in particular, with, in our opinion, the head of the Belgorod region and members of his family - Vladimir Mikhailovich Tebekin. The connections between the Belgorod authorities and Belgorod organized crime groups are depicted more clearly by the blogger in the infographic.

The police, as described in the same article, are inactive, or their employees discredit the honor of their uniform in the most banal way (video at the end of the article).

A ton of smuggled gold

The above examples are not isolated. They are systemic in nature. And all this can turn into tragedy. In analytical materials about the state of crime in the region they literally write the following: “The Kushchevskaya tragedy may be repeated in the Belgorod region, during which 12 people were killed, including four children (family, friends and children of an entrepreneur who did not submit to the bandits). In any case, all the prerequisites for this exist. Local criminal groups feel unpunished due to the inaction of the authorities and law enforcement agencies, and sometimes even with their patronage, and therefore squeeze out business from entrepreneurs, torture them, take them hostage, and kill them.”

The construction project of a jewelry factory in the Belgorod region on the production sites of the notorious Energomash has already aroused the unconditional interest of specialists and law enforcement agencies. Market participants are naturally surprised - where can we get so many specialists to produce 150 kg (with an average productivity of 100 kg) of products per month? How will the sales of such a voluminous mass of products be organized? The general director of the Guild of Russian Jewelers, Eduard Utkin, directly says that the monthly sale of 150 kg of gold jewelry is unrealistic. Nevertheless, the plant is being built. And here is how law enforcement officials describe the background to this “investment” plan.

“The particular cynicism in this situation,” a senior law enforcement official shared with us, “is that not only bandits act in the interests of Belgorod officials, but also officials help bandits launder criminal proceeds. For example, the local media recently reported with fanfare that they were going to create a fake jewelry factory on the basis of the Energomash plant, which had been bankrupt by the authorities. They plan to invest over five hundred million, apparently, of budget funds in the reconstruction of the site. It would seem - what is the point of this enterprise? We don’t mine our own gold, there are practically no jewelers, which means we have to bring it from other regions, and the economic situation is not right for investing in this business. And the trick is that the Belgorod bandits, due to the aggravated relations between the Turkish smugglers’ camps, swindled a ton of gold in jewelry. This ton needs to be legalized somehow. That is, the main significance of the jewelry factory in Belgorod is the legalization of criminally obtained funds. It is not difficult to predict how the injection of such a volume of smuggled gold into the market will affect the market. Most likely, jewelers will not be transported, but Turkish smuggled gold will be sold as made in Belgorod. At bargain prices, of course. Gold items were purchased from Turkish smugglers in 2013 illegally for sale, while neither the Turks nor the Russian state received taxes or duties. The guys who started the scheme in Belgorod own the “Zima” restaurant, a car market, the central market... Everything is guarded by security companies (private security companies) of Sidor..., Sidor is the right hand of the Sailor in the Belgorod region. The official director of many structures is Nesvitaylo Mikhail - Deputy Sailor for the Boxing Federation. Before that, he was a driver for Governor Bobritsky’s son-in-law... That’s where the threads go.”

As a result

Based on the above, it turns out that the most likely candidate for resignation is the Governor of the Belgorod Region, Evgeny Savchenko. Firstly, he has held the post of head of the region since 1993 and has clearly overstayed his welcome in this chair. Secondly, it clearly does not contribute to the solution of the important state tasks set before Russia today. Thirdly, his further tenure will only aggravate the difficult criminal and corruption situation in the region, which could really lead to a tragedy like the one that happened in the village of Kushchevskaya. Fourthly, the situation with the legalization of smuggled Turkish gold could collapse the market and ruin many bona fide Russian enterprises. Fifthly, he has already received a warning from the ONF...

The central government has long been accustomed to the fact that at the helm of the Belgorod region is an old-time governor who firmly holds the region, who pleases the eye with good ratings, and there is no need to particularly interfere in the next predetermined election of the head of the region.

And like a bolt from the clear Kremlin sky, the cry of despair of the medical workers of the Belgorod region entitled “We are tired of being slaves,” where in black and white doctors and nurses of the “prosperous” region describe how the “May decrees” of the president are actually implemented and how they live in reality, or rather, people in white coats living in the region survive.

That same “cry of despair” came from the City Children’s Hospital, where, as it turns out, nurses receive 9,000-11,000 thousand a month plus a verbal “bonus” from the head physician, inviting everyone to be positive and still try to live on this money families of their employees.

This test of survival has been going on for several years, although open promises have been made that in 2016 doctors in the region will earn 40 thousand, nurses twenty thousand, nannies around seventeen thousand.

Yes, there are nurses who earn twenty, working two or three times a day or thanks to additional shifts - especially in conditions of staff shortages. And it is these figures that are then included in the region’s reporting to the center, which allows the region to have decent positions in most rankings. The salary of the “positive” head physician of this hospital is also included in the reporting - 120 thousand rubles per month or 10-15 real nurses’ salaries.

As well as the fact that the governor simply gets away with all the “pranks” - as in the story of forcing regional agricultural producers to transfer more than 3 billion rubles to extra-budgetary funds on a “voluntary” basis, when such voluntariness was recognized as a violation, but from the circle of violators the governor carefully brought out.

I would also like to ask the president why, against the backdrop of the impoverishment of ordinary residents of the region, the governor’s entourage, which heads the main Belgorod assets, has not left the Forbes list for a long time, including the owner of the Prioskolye Group of Companies Gennady Bobritsky, the former deputy chairman of the government and still the son-in-law of the head of the region, with an enterprise revenue of 34.5 billion rubles, as well as the former deputy chairman of the regional government, controlling Agro-Belogorye, and then regional Duma deputy Vladimir Zotov with a personal fortune of $400 million, .

Also, the president did not hear why, with all the external gloss, one cannot raise a couple of pigs for sale in order to feed the family, while others, for example, the governor’s daughter Olga Savchenko, where he points with his finger, it’s done right away - if you want a center for foreign languages, if you want - just a shopping center center?

“They are depriving us of work, business, fabricating criminal cases and trying, judging, judging, trying to remove us from public life by any means,” say Belgorod residents, and tens of billions of rubles are being invested in the local agro-industrial complex, long ago divided between their own, both from the regional budget and from government loans. And then the region’s public debt grows to 34 billion rubles, which is equal to two-thirds of the annual revenues of the regional treasury. In terms of public debt, the region ranks 8th in Russia, and the debt of the Belgorod region is almost equal to the debt of all regions of the North Caucasus.

As a result of such a policy, when one of the components of success in business is receiving various kinds of subsidies, this, of course, contributes to corruption and nepotism, the emergence of people with administrative resources and connections who cling to the state trough and push away all strangers from it. As a result, only certain agricultural holdings “close” to the authorities are satisfied with the profits.

So, the arrival of the head of state in the Belgorod region is nothing more than a demonstration to the population of the Kremlin’s loyalty to Savchenko - they say, if you choose him, you will receive subsidies and other injections into the development of the region. Another thing is, what will these injections be used for? Surely the current Belgorod elite knows about this - why should everyone else? You won't get anything anyway...

Savchenko and people

Of all the governors of the regions of the Central Federal District, Evgeny Savchenko has held this post for the longest term - he has ruled the region for the third decade. Visually, he is not a rich man, his earnings for the past year were about 2.8 million rubles.

But what’s surprising is that the region ranked sixth in terms of quality of life according to the results of the past year. And ordinary Belgorod residents write letters and petitions for the governor’s resignation.

“... the governor and his subordinates are doing everything to kill the entrepreneurial initiative in the residents... they are taking away and ruining successful farms in favor of the governor’s close associates and openly criminal structures... state subsidies to support the agro-industrial complex are distributed among ineffective farms owned by the closest associates of Evgeniy Savchenko and his relatives... under the guise of fighting fictitious epidemics in the region, people are prohibited from raising pigs on their farms, which destroys the centuries-old traditions of the region and way of life... criminals feel unpunished - they kidnap entrepreneurs, torture them, extort money, law enforcement agencies are inactive..." - in such petitions are a real cry from the soul of ordinary residents of the region.

According to some experts, to whom the Kremlin apparently looks back, the socio-economic and political situation in the region is stable, and problems associated with the region’s serious debt are characteristic of entities that are developing rapidly - which means there is no reason to change someone for farm.

According to others, “Savchenko has been at the head of the region for too long, and something needs to be changed. Residents do not confirm the statistics on average wages and job security that are provided to us by official bodies. Yes, our agricultural complexes are growing and developing, but peasant farms, on the contrary, are dying.”

To briefly summarize Savchenko’s longevity in the Belgorod region, it looks like this: heading the region since 1993, he introduced an authoritarian management system in the region, controlling business, social and political life, and even local criminal communities. Businesses are squeezed out of unwanted entrepreneurs either through the hands of bandits or with the help of law enforcement agencies, and enterprises are ruined. Persons close to the governor receive government subsidies, enterprises, land and other assets. On the one hand, having provided a certain positive picture and stability in the eyes of the federal center, Savchenko for a long time almost became an example for the other heads of territories.

Of course, visually, Evgeny Savchenko’s services to the federal center look solid. However, the level of corruption in the Belgorod region exceeds the all-Russian indicators by an order of magnitude. And the level of crime in the economic sphere seems to be one of the highest in the country.

The region has more than once been among the top ten regions of the Russian Federation in terms of corruption ratings in the field of public procurement. And due to corruption scandals, the rating of the governor himself began to decline, which is also, at a minimum, a reason for concern for the center.

But if we take into account that, despite visible and hidden problems in the region, the Belgorod region is far from the worst in the country, we need to say something else - almost a quarter of a century of “living together” between Savchenko and Belgorod residents has accumulated a lot of discontent, claims and questions among the latter , which no one is going to solve. The governor needs another term, he is already going to the polls, proclaiming “We will not rest on our laurels.” And proudly walking in the shadow of Putin, who had arrived to visit - they say, such a person does not come to everyone! Although this is rather a reason to take a closer look at yourself: what have you really done to ensure that a resident of the region, no, is not fed, clothed and shod. So that he could feed, clothe and put on shoes for his family. And so that every Belgorod resident can proudly say - yes, this is our governor! Everyone, and not just those who, thanks to their acquaintance with the head of the region, got state-owned enterprises on the cheap.

Vote don't vote?

Today, the Kremlin clearly wants to hold elections in the Belgorod region with “little bloodshed” - without shocks, and preferably without obvious candidates of a different party affiliation. Savchenko is also clearly committed to a new term. At the same time, unlike most regions where elections are coming in September, the Belgorod region is quiet and quiet.

Yes, “A Just Russia” nominated its candidate in the person of Yuri Osetrov, and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is going to nominate Stanislav Panov - but it all looks somehow sad, without the former excitement. Maybe because everything has already been decided? Maybe, thinking this way, the LDPR was still in no hurry to show up for the elections, later than others, as if reluctantly nominating Konstantin Klimashevsky after all?

Yes, the representative of the “Civic Platform” Andrei Malikov announced his desire to participate in the elections, as reported by our newspaper, after which the region immediately started talking about the political struggle for the governor’s seat, which reached a new criminal level.

Although such a turn of events is not very realistic - the central government has enough strength and capabilities, assessing the prospects of a particular candidate, to prevent him from participating in the elections using the same municipal filter. A living example is the refusal of the Central Election Commission to register the current mayor of Yekaterinburg, Evgeniy Roizman, as a candidate for governor of the Sverdlovsk region, to please “his” Evgeniy Kuyvashev.

In Malikov’s program, which he presented back in January, the first point was “The question of power. The abolition of the clan-tribal power that has developed on the territory of the Belgorod region ...” - that is, what really became painful during the decades of Savchenko’s rule. This is dangerous for the latter, but still, why do the authorities need a man with a knife - the best “killer” here is the same municipal filter, against which Malikov turned out to be powerless.

From the “Party of Veterans of Russia”, Eduard Chausov will go to the polls, becoming another participant in the upcoming September show, and bringing great pleasure to Moscow - so many different party candidates create an excellent appearance of real elections, but at the same time, even Mr. Zhirinovsky, who usually drools for his candidates in the regions, which, in his opinion, are always “polished, rubbed down and pushed aside,” here it was as if he had taken in water in his mouth. Perhaps he knows more than others - that’s why he doesn’t waste his energy in vain, but he is obliged to accept the game of “giveaway”, he sits too well now - that’s why there is also a candidate from the LDPR.

What about people? Putin came to the region - people (the kind of people) were generally positive towards the authorities, which was replicated and shown by various media (the kind of media). The Kremlin had to make sure that people were positive towards the current local authorities (or convince themselves or the same people).

Hundreds of Belgorod residents participated in a live dialogue with the president. The population of the region is more than one and a half million people. These are precisely the people who vote for Savchenko’s resignation and complain that it is impossible to engage in business or even small private farming in the region, in the opinion of whom the government “has long since rotted in corruption and selfishness.” So maybe we should go to the polls in September and cut off this “rot” from the body of the region in one fell swoop? More precisely, hundreds of thousands of signatures.

After all, it is already clear that if re-elected, the new gubernatorial term will be the last for Savchenko, who the Kremlin needs now and here only because preparations for the presidential elections are already underway and reliable people and results are needed locally. The cooling of the center towards Savchenko after the presidential elections looks quite likely; the Kremlin will no longer need to suffer from selective blindness and deafness in relation to what is happening in the Belgorod region - which means the latter (as well as his immediate circle) will need to have time to “remove the last harvest of power,” put it away in “bins” (including offshore ones), and, of course, preserve everything that was previously acquired by the most “backbreaking labor.” Will the governor care about the people? Up to those same one and a half million residents, up to those very few hundred thousand voters, each of whom will have the opportunity in September to invite Mr. Savchenko to take care of his personal affairs... in retirement. And to show Moscow that elections are not always a talk show with a clear script from the start to the last frame, but rather the choice of the people of one of the regions of the country to which, at a minimum, the golden-domed one geographically belongs. And this choice must be respected - if there is a desire to receive respect in return. On the second Sunday of March next year, for example...

About life credo

Evgeniy Stepanovich considers his credo to be “Obey without humiliation, command without impudence” - a thought formed by Russian nobles. Although the politician himself notes that he is of peasant blood.

About the ideal spouse

The head of the region considers Victoria Petrovna Brezhneva, the wife of Leonid Ilyich, to be the ideal politician’s wife. Evgeniy Stepanovich notes that: “If the manager’s wife even works somewhere next to her husband, she will immediately be surrounded by all sorts of whisperers. Gossip and intrigue will begin. What is this for? If he can’t stand it, he’ll start saying something and giving advice.”

About the Soviet Union

“Already at the conference [in 1989 – approx. ed.] felt: the Soviet Union does not have much time left. It was in the air,” Evgeniy Savchenko.

About the rally in Chechnya

Evgeniy Stepanovich oversaw two regions in the Central Committee: Kursk region and Checheno-Ingushetia. A politician spoke about a rally of five thousand people in Grozny. Then the participants speculated on environmental problems: because of the construction of a biochemical plant, local residents raised a cry that “they want to destroy the Chechen people.”

Savchenko was sent from Moscow to extinguish the conflict. According to my recollections, he went out to the people and said: we’ll create a commission and we’ll sort it out. Everything worked out. At that time, the unrest was quickly quelled.

About returning to Belgorod

The politician worked in Moscow for a year, then they offered to return to Belgorod. According to him, he agreed with joy: “...I didn’t like the paperwork. Maybe someone likes phone calls, negotiations, writing certificates and reports, but I have always been attracted to real, real work.”

On appointment to the post of governor

They recommended Evgeniy Stepanovich for the post of governor of the Belgorod region in 1993. At that time he worked as a consultant at the Ministry of Agriculture. He was included in the list of candidates because “they were looking for Belgorod residents who worked in Moscow.”

About the governor's term

Yevgeny Savchenko did not think that he would last so long as governor. However, he reflected: “... one would have to work for at least ten years to leave a worthy mark in people’s memory.”

About the nineties

As elsewhere, at this time in Belgorod “everything was falling apart.” There were also brothers: “We also had to find a common language with them. Well, in what sense? I came to defend the interests of the state, law, and order. Do you want to do business? Please! But - strictly legal. So, so as not to cross the red line, not to interfere in someone else’s diocese.”

About security and bribery

The governor said that he does not have security.

“Security is needed if you do something illegal, if you double-deal, but I have always served the state. And only to him."Evgeniy Savchenko

No one has ever tried to bribe the head of the region. According to the governor, he understood perfectly well that if he accepted “leftist” money at least once, then all his life he would fulfill someone’s whims. And he didn’t become a politician for that.

About personnel

Rotation, according to Evgeniy Stepanovich, is a natural process. Some simply change jobs, but there are also those who have remained with the politician to this day (the governor cites Valery Shamaev as an example).

Savchenko is proud that during the years of his leadership, none of the district heads or deputies went to prison.

“I didn’t bring it to this point. If I felt that unpleasant questions were starting to arise for the person, I recommended looking for another place of work. Out of harm's way. There have been such cases."Evgeniy Savchenko

About debt

The head of the region notes that the region is paying back its debts. Thus, 5 billion rubles of a bank loan were recently repaid. Three years ago, the region was among the TOP 5 most heavily indebted regions. Today, the Belgorod region has moved to the middle of the list.

About faith

“Without the sky - how? Without the Creator, nothing is possible. I always feel that he is the main actor in everything that happens.”Evgeniy Savchenko

About the mat

Evgeniy Stepanovich is of the opinion: “We need to create a culture of communication. The more internal prohibitions, the higher the degree of external freedom.” Although he himself admits that strong words can escape from his heart.

About the monarchy

Savchenko has nothing against the constitutional system. Moreover, he believes that Russia can come to this: “The Russian person was brought up on autocracy, it is in his blood.”

Help "MK"

At the end of the 80s, the “father” of all Belgorod residents occupied a high position in the regional power hierarchy. According to our information, already at that time Savchenko was noticed in the speculative redistribution of Volga cars intended for preferential categories of citizens. Then more than 50 cars of this brand were sold illegally. The first to sound the alarm was Savchenko’s direct boss, first secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU A.F. Ponomarev. He removed our “hero” from office. By the way, his accomplice served six months in Matrosskaya Tishina. Traces of Yevgeny Stepanovich were lost in Moscow. In Moscow, Yevgeny Stepanovich repented... and only the management’s pity for him saved him from prison. He was allowed to resign of his own free will. He contributed money to the company's cash desk for the damage. His second coming to the Belgorod region took place in the wake of Yeltsin’s murky reforms, when they did not particularly care about the moral character of the personnel. Savchenko was appointed acting head of the administration of the Belgorod region, a democrat who suffered from the communist regime!

Governor of the Belgorod region Evgeny Savchenko is among the “platinum” millionaires. I wonder how this money was earned?

Marina Kuznetsova

According to the results of a sociological survey conducted by correspondents of the newspaper “MK” in Belgorod, only every fifteenth resident of the region can afford to travel outside the region in the summer. The warm sea and the gentle southern sun are a sweet dream for many Belgorod residents, which remains a dream.

The southern coast of Crimea and the Krasnodar region offer a meager variety of travel packages purchased by representatives of the notorious middle class. Although this pleasure is sometimes the result of significant cuts in the family budget.

True, not for everyone. For example, the governor of the Belgorod region, Evgeny Savchenko, whose declared income barely exceeds $10 thousand, is used to vacationing on a grand scale. What is the cost of Yevgeny Stepanovich’s cruise to Athens on the ten-deck superliner “Westerdam”, popularly nicknamed the “Russian Titanic”.

Moreover, as reported in official sources, the governor took advantage of the “Platinum” package of services, which even very wealthy Russians cannot afford - for this reason, not all places were sold out.

By the way, the head's vacation cost the regional budget, according to the most conservative estimates, 50 thousand euros.

One can, of course, assume other sources of income other than the salary of a civil servant, but alas, Evgeniy Savchenko stubbornly denies involvement in any business structures. Unfortunately, it is not possible to believe that the first person of the region was saving with his last funds for a long-awaited cruise over the past 10-15 years.

How Evgeniy Savchenko has been leading the same region for twenty years

In 1993, the head of the regional administration, Viktor Berestovoy, spoke out against the dispersal by the president of the Supreme Council, for which Boris Yeltsin fired him, and in this place he appointed an employee of the federal Ministry of Agriculture, Evgeny Stepanovich Savchenko, a native of the Belgorod region, who already had experience working in the party bodies of the region.

Two decades have passed since then. None of the current governors has been in office for such a long period of time. This is an absolute record for Russia. And probably, like any record, it has a lot to do with luck. But, undoubtedly, there are also objective reasons explaining why neither Boris Yeltsin, nor Vladimir Putin, nor Dmitry Medvedev ever thought of replacing Savchenko. After all, the region’s impeccable economic indicators are combined with an almost complete absence of social and political life there: from a civil point of view, the Belgorod region is “dead”; its complete “verticalization” occurred earlier than it happened in other regions.

As for economic indicators, the Belgorod region is invariably ranked among the most dynamically developing Russian regions. At the same time, the governor has the “correct” state worldview and actively fights to maintain morality. Evgeny Savchenko has been repeatedly offered a seat in the federal government; he could easily become both the head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Deputy Prime Minister. But Mr. Savchenko invariably refused, which is why he became a record-breaking governor.

Triple luck

Of course, the economic well-being of the region is largely due to geographical reasons. The local economy has been lucky in several ways at the same time. Firstly, the region has significant deposits of iron ore (according to some estimates, up to 40% of the national reserves), thanks to which there is a thriving metallurgy industry, in particular, such well-known metallurgical enterprises throughout the country as Stoilensky and Lebedinsky GOKs, which together produce more than a third of all Russian iron ore concentrate.

At the same time, the region is rich in fertile black soils, which literally create the ground for the development of the agricultural sector: in its best years, the region produced up to 20% of domestic pork.

Finally, the Belgorod region is our gateway to Ukraine. The second largest city in Ukraine, Kharkov, is located only 70 km from Belgorod, that is, closer than any Russian regional center. In the past, Belgorod was generally called a satellite city of Kharkov. Thanks to the main roads and railways passing through it, the Belgorod region accounts for about 20% of Russian-Ukrainian foreign trade turnover.

With such “initial data” it is, of course, easier to manage, but you still need to be able to take advantage of the gifts of nature. There is also black soil in the neighboring regions, meanwhile, many people who have recently crossed the border of the Belgorod and Voronezh regions have invariably noted that the difference in the quality of roads is very noticeable.

Shard of Europe

Infrastructure is generally a strong point of local government. Evgeniy Savchenko is one of the few governors who managed not only to begin, but also to completely complete gasification of the region. Savchenko was one of the first to create a fund to support individual construction, so even Boris Yeltsin gave instructions to “spread the Belgorod experience in the country.”

And all visitors are amazed by the city infrastructure, from the cleanliness of the streets to the cleanliness of public toilets. “This is a fragment of Europe in Russia!” - says economist Mikhail Khazin. “Entering the territory of the Belgorod region, you get the feeling that you have already crossed the state border of the Russian Federation and are driving through a completely European country,” politician Ivan Starikov echoes him.

True, there is one comical circumstance here too. The streets of Belgorod and other settlements in the region are paved with tiles, but the factory that produces the tiles, as Kommersant reported, citing local residents, belongs to the governor. Last year, blogger Adelis wrote on the Ekho Moskvy website: “In Belgorod, according to rumors, all factories producing paving slabs belong to the governor. At the same time, those who tried to open a mini-factory for the production of tiles came to him in “black funnels” and made it clear that it was better not to do this. But the ENTIRE-S-S region, sidewalks, etc. were tiled.”

However, in many regions of Russia, tiles are a sacred matter.

Relatives

In general, despite all the economic well-being of the Belgorod region, complaints about corruption and the fact that only people close to the governor or even his relatives are allowed to take leading positions in business in the region are periodically heard.

Critics blame the governor for the business of his daughter Olga Savchenko. In 2004, she created the Interlingua language center, specializing in teaching English, after which Belgorod State University began sending its employees to study there. According to SPARK, in November 2005, Olga Savchenko became a co-founder of the Crete company, whose subsidiary, the South Pole company, acted as an investor and developer of the City Mall Belgorodsky shopping and entertainment complex. In addition, in 2009, Ms. Savchenko created the NB-Retail company, which opened several clothing stores in Belgorod, including in the Belgorodsky City Mall.

There is also talk about relatives in the government apparatus. For example, a certain Andrei Savchenko was appointed head of the Belgorod district administration; when asked by Belgorodskie Izvestia whether he was a relative of the governor, he replied: “Not even a namesake.” Understand it as you wish...

They talk about Savchenko's sons-in-law. “Savchenko has many second cousins ​​and nieces, and their husbands are Savchenko’s sons-in-law. This is what they call both the deputy of the Belgorod Regional Duma Valery Stepanovich Skrug and the secretary of the Security Council of the Belgorod Region Sergei Aleksandrovich Litvinov,” says local blogger and civil activist Vladimir Kucherenko. “The very first and most important question that interests an interviewer with a young applicant for a vacant position when applying for a job in regional government agencies and some private organizations closely associated with the state is “what do the parents do?” - says the blogger.

During the conflict between the Belgorod administration and the Inteko corporation that occurred in the mid-2000s, Elena Baturina even complained to Vladimir Putin that they were being poisoned by the governor’s relative, the mayor of Belgorod Vasily Potryasaev.

Strangers don't come here

Savchenko’s conflict with Elena Baturina is generally the loudest scandal in the history of Yevgeny Stepanovich’s governorship. It all started with the fact that Inteko, which was under the control of the wife of Yuri Luzhkov and her brother Viktor Baturin, bought several factories, farms and about 100,000 hectares of farmland in the Belgorod region. The project developed successfully at first, but then became bogged down in land disputes with the population and authorities. During the conflict, there were also criminal showdowns: almost simultaneously in Moscow, lawyer Dmitry Steinberg, who represented the interests of Inteko, was killed, and in Belgorod there was an attempt on the life of Inteko-Agro executive director Alexander Annenkov. Elena Baturina complained to Vladimir Putin, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and deputies. Belgorod residents responded “reciprocally”: the heads of six districts of the region sent an appeal to senators and deputies of the State Duma, in which they asked to stop the capital company Inteko, which is actively buying land in the region. According to rumors, the governor did not like the fact that Inteko built few agricultural facilities and fired too many workers. Meanwhile, Inteko sponsored the LDPR branch in Belogorye, and it was headed by Alexander Annenkov. Representatives of the Liberal Democrats also complained of attacks on their activists. As a result, Zhirinovsky called Savchenko “a bandit who should be in prison” and “the leader of an organized criminal group,” for which the governor, through the court, recovered 500,000 rubles from Vladimir Volfovich.

Perhaps it was the problems of the Belgorod project that caused Elena Baturina’s break with her brother, in any case, it took place immediately after the scandal.

Friends and colleagues

Sometimes you can hear that successful business in the Belgorod region is often the lot of officials or ex-officials. Vladimir Kucherenko claims that the result of Evgeniy Savchenko’s reign was “the formation of a group of large owners from among long-time acquaintances through the bankruptcy of previously operating enterprises and the creation in their place of new ones, but with different owners.” When asked to clarify who he meant, the blogger explained that in the 1990s, ownership of large enterprises being built was registered in the hands of wives. Anna Filatova, the wife of Gennady Bondarev, the current head of the government procurement and licensing department of the Belgorod region, turned out to be the owner of 100% of the shares of APP RIF CJSC, which in the 1990s built the largest processing enterprise in the region, a flour mill. In the 2000s, high-ranking officials themselves left the civil service and built large enterprises. Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Belgorod Region Administration Gennady Bobritsky became the main owner and chairman of the board of directors of the country's largest poultry holding, Prioskolye Group of Companies. Another deputy chairman of the government of the Belgorod region administration, Vladimir Zotov, is now the main owner and general director of the large crop and pig breeding holding LLC Agro-Belogorye Group of Companies.

As you can read in open sources, Mr. Bobritsky’s capital grew due to the fact that he bought a bankrupt poultry farm and restored it at state expense, that is, with loans and guarantees from the regional budget.

Voronezh journalist, former editor-in-chief of the Kommersant-Chernozemye newspaper Konstantin Chaplin, when asked if there was a business particularly close to the governor, answered: “Gennady Bobritsky, owner of the Prioskolye poultry holding, and Vladimir Zotov, owner of the Agro-Belogorye agricultural holding.” , worked in the regional government. Evgeniy Savchenko raised them, helped them rise to their feet as successful entrepreneurs.”

“It seems to me that it is in Belgorod that there is such a widespread Russian problem that the government is very closely connected with business, perhaps in a good way,” comments Anna Dobrovolskaya, a former resident of Belgorod, a member of the coordination council of the Youth Human Rights Movement.

Dictatorship

Savchenko uses businessmen close to him to manipulate political parties. In 2011, a rather strange, if not funny, message appeared that Evgeniy Stepanovich had actually appointed the owner of the Spako Stroy-Garant company, which is involved in the construction of livestock complexes, Alexander Tarasov, as the leader of the local branch of the Right Cause party. The current leader, also an entrepreneur, Alexander Kushnarev, did not even know that a replacement had already been found for him.

In 2010, after the elections to the regional Duma, the local “A Just Russia” received only one mandate. Representatives of the party's federal election headquarters began to be indignant that the authorities gave their votes to United Russia and that the governor violated the agreements. But the governor is a fair person, and after the elections, two more businessman-deputies - managing director of KMAruda Plant OJSC Vladimir Tomaev and co-owner of the ZhBK-1 group Yuri Selivanov - joined the Fair Russia faction.

“In the Belgorod region, an authoritarian system of administration, often reaching such comical “advances,” operates clearly. Real politics and the struggle of parties in the region do not exist in principle, and their imitation is under the complete “manual” control of Yevgeny Savchenko. He appoints both United Russia members and the opposition to himself,” explains political scientist Vladimir Slatinov. “The country and the region are in a state of dictatorship, closer to dictatorship,” states Sergei Demchenko, a member of the Belgorod regional committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

It is not surprising that the Communists generally refused to participate in last year’s gubernatorial elections, citing the fact that it was impossible to overcome the administrative resources of the party in power.

Shouts of outrage

The conflict with Inteko happened a long time ago, but even now complaints about corruption and extortions in the region are periodically heard.

So, at the beginning of 2012, nine residents of the Belgorod region sent an open letter to President Dmitry Medvedev, in which they complained: “In the Novooskolsky district, the head of M.N. proposes to live according to the concepts, and not according to the laws of the Russian Federation, the triumph of which you talk about. They deprive us of work, business, fabricate criminal cases and try, judge, judge, trying to remove us from public life by any means (illegal, of course).”

Evgenia Savchenko is being selected as a worthy competitor from the LDPR
Photo: Oleg Kharseev / Kommersant

A loud corruption scandal erupted in 2010. A certain Viktor Statinov, who was acting in the interests of the first deputy head of the administration of the Gubkinsky urban district, Sergei Garkushov, was caught red-handed. 38 million rubles, on which Statinov got burned, turned out to be payment for the smooth registration of the land plot into the ownership of a commercial structure. At the same time, Mr. Statinov claimed that he was only an intermediary, and the money was intended for the authorities, including Deputy Governor Oleg Polukhin.

Olga Kitova, a Belgorod journalist who criticized Governor Savchenko a lot and at one time went through arrests, beatings and criminal cases that collapsed in the Supreme Court, commented on this case as follows: “In the Belgorod region, they began talk for a long time, a very long time. Rumor stated: the more expensive it was supposed to be to do business on that land, the more expensive it became. On average, knowledgeable people explained, the “kickback” is 10% of the cost of a business project.”

The criminal case against the alleged bribe takers, however, fell apart. According to Olga Kitova, the police officers from the Department for Economic Crimes who dealt with him were fired. By coincidence or not, soon after this Mr. Polukhin left the post of vice-governor and became the rector of Belgorod University. However, even in his new position, he monitored his reputation and won a lawsuit against The Moscow Post newspaper, which published an article about his involvement in a bribery case.

Money for farmers

But no scandals can change the fact that the region has achieved great success both in the economy and in the social sphere. The average life expectancy of Belgorod residents is two years longer than the Russian average.

The Inteko company was unlucky in the sense that it was engaged in agriculture, in which Evgeniy Savchenko - a hereditary peasant, professional agronomist, former director of a state farm - intervenes especially intensively.

But such influence of the governor is not felt everywhere. The “central” industry of the region - ferrous metallurgy - is under the wing of federal holdings. For example, Lebedinsky GOK is controlled by the Metalloinvest holding. Stoilensky GOK belongs to the Novolipetsk Iron and Steel Works of Vladimir Lisin, the KMAruda plant belongs to the Koks group of deputy Boris Zubitsky, and Metal Group LLC, according to press reports, is controlled by the Chernomyrdin family. Evgeniy Savchenko does not interfere in the work of metallurgists.

As Yuri Korchagin, director of the Center for Regional Economic Research, notes, the success of Belgorod metallurgy depends not so much on the regional authorities, but on the global demand for products, and “Evgeniy Savchenko chose the agro-industrial complex for his main personal efforts, where he was and remains a professional with rich experience and knowledge."

The local government is actively involved in the development of the agro-industrial complex, investing heavily in it. According to official data, from 2005 to 2012, the region provided investment support in the form of state guarantees, budget loans, contributions to the authorized capital of open joint-stock companies, tax benefits and other things in the amount of 22 billion 649 million rubles. The authorities undertake to provide infrastructure facilities (communications, roads, etc.) and provide guarantees for loans taken by farmers. Last year, the speaker of the Altai Legislative Assembly, Ivan Loor, noted with envy that “Savchenko built roads to every dairy farm.”

The results are visible: the region managed to take first place in Russia in agricultural production per capita. Annual investments in the region's agro-industrial complex amount to tens of billions of rubles (20 billion rubles in 2012).

Active investments by the local government in the economy and intensive assistance to enterprises, of course, force the regional budget to increase spending by all means, which leads to an increase in its debt. As of March 1, the debt of the Belgorod region amounted to 34 billion rubles, which is equal to two-thirds of the annual revenues of the regional treasury. At the same time, the debt is growing rapidly - at the beginning of last year it was one and a half times less. In terms of public debt, the region ranks 8th in Russia; the debt of the Belgorod region is almost equal to the debt of all regions of the North Caucasus. True, approximately half of the debts come from guarantees provided to regional enterprises to obtain bank loans. Nevertheless, the region’s budget is chronically in deficit; this year the deficit amounted to about 3 billion rubles. To finance the deficit, only in March of this year the region entered into a contract with Sberbank for 1.5 billion rubles.

Of course, such a financial policy is risky, but it is working for now.

But, of course, when one of the components of success in business is receiving various kinds of subsidies, this, of course, contributes to corruption and nepotism, the emergence of people with administrative resources and connections who cling to the state trough and push away all strangers from it. Moreover, as a result, viable agricultural holdings may still appear.

Nanosapphires

At the same time, former communist, former party functionary, former director of the state farm, Yevgeny Savchenko, is open to various technical innovations. For example, the “project” management principle has been introduced into the regional government department. Savchenko is actively pursuing a program of biologization of agriculture (increasing soil fertility by sowing perennial grasses, creating forest belts, etc.). The region even created its own system for the development of an innovative economy, the so-called Belgorod Intellectual Innovation System (BIIS), the supervisory board of which is headed by Mr. Savchenko. The regional administration has a department for innovative development, which even has a nanoindustry department. The Belgorod region is one of the five constituent entities of the Russian Federation that have programs approved by Rusnano. By 2015, the region plans to reach production volumes of 20 billion rubles across the entire innovative range of Rusnano. Projects are already being implemented in the region to produce innovative products, from nanocellulose to artificial sapphires. Innovative road surfaces produced under Rusnano projects are already being used on Belgorod roads. Biogas energy is actively developing in the region.

General Director of Belfarmacom LLC Dmitry Gorigoriev, whom Ko asked to characterize the work of the regional administration with investors, emphasized: “First of all, the work of the regional administration lies in the fact that it is really (not declaratively) interested in the development of the region, in increasing the gross domestic regional product, creating new jobs, bringing Belgorod products to markets in other regions and for export. Tangible support is provided, for example, under the auspices of the department of economic development, innovative and growing businesses are identified, which are allocated federal and regional subsidies, and working infrastructure projects are created (business incubators, industrial parks, etc.). Relevant departments (for us this is the Department of Agro-Industrial Complex) also implement effective measures to support local producers, for example, the governor’s initiatives on import substitution. Methodological support is provided - training and advanced training programs for personnel, including managers, are organized, meetings are initiated (up to the creation of clusters) of enterprises in related fields of activity.”

Afterwards - even a flood

The struggle of the governor, once a member of the CPSU, now Orthodox, for morality is worthy of a separate story. Mr. Savchenko’s policy in this area causes irony among some and admiration among others, but it cannot be denied consistency. The fight for morality in Belgorod includes many absolutely surprising measures: fines for obscene language, a curfew for teenagers, the imposition of the “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture” in schools, a ban on celebrating Valentine’s Day and Halloween, persecution of rock music and “heavy metal.” " Billboards with social advertising are actively used to promote moral values: eyewitnesses saw billboards with the inscription “God exists.” There is also a monument to an honest traffic cop erected in the region.

As part of the struggle for spirituality, the production of some theatrical plays has been banned, including works by Nobel laureate Dario Fo, Ivan Vyrypaev and Evgeniy Grishkovets. “This is obscurantism, savagery, madness,” Evgeniy Grishkovets described what happened. But the officials did not act arbitrarily, but on the basis of the regional law on spiritual security.

On the Internet you can find, for example, quotes from a document such as “Measures to ensure spiritual security in the Belgorod region for 2010,” which suggest “developing and introducing an educational course “Spiritual Security” for permanent teaching in higher and secondary educational institutions of the region.” .

Restrictions on the sale of alcoholic beverages, before they were introduced at the federal level, were also tested in Belgorod. One of the governor’s latest tricks is fines for using the services of prostitutes (the prosecutor’s office, however, protested them).

It is curious that the “moral attitude” of the governor also affects the economic life of the region. As Konstantin Chaplin says, the Belgorod region is characterized by a careful approach of regional authorities to the selection of investors and, accordingly, restriction of free competition: “Not everyone is allowed in. For example, McDonald's never managed to enter Belgorod. It is also difficult to imagine the construction of a Coca-Cola plant there. Because the governor is a staunch supporter of a healthy lifestyle and nutrition. There were similar problems when some retail chains entered the city. However, judging by the life expectancy of the population, Savchenko’s policy largely justifies itself.”

Like the President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov, Yevgeny Savchenko has already been compared to the progressive Singaporean dictator Lee Kuan Yew. At the same time, economic progress is combined with the strictest control over social and public life, the inevitable consequence of which is the merger of bureaucracy and business, as well as corruption. But similar shortcomings are recorded in all Russian regions, and such advantages still need to be looked for. According to Yuri Korchagin, in the Belgorod region there has been a single center of influence - around Governor Evgeny Savchenko, who professes a tough and authoritarian style of leadership of the region, which has led, in particular, to the weakness of the “fourth estate” - the media, and to a general decrease in the influence of society on government , on development processes.

According to Konstantin Chaplin, the main problem of people of this type is that after they leave everything collapses.

Konstantin Frumkin