Circles on the water: why the residents of Orel and Bryansk are worried about the arrest of Penza governor

During a search of his house, law enforcement officers found half a billion rubles. Accomplices are also arrested - Boris Shpigel and his closest assistants, including his wife. And what about other friends and colleagues?

Lyudmila Butuzova

Where does the governor of a seedy region get such a lot of money? Officially, he is charged with taking bribes totaling 31 million rubles. for lobbying the interests of pharmaceutical manufacturers. Among the bribe-givers, ex-senator (represented Penza in the Federation Council in 2003-2013) Boris Shpigel is the head of the pharmaceutical companies Biotek, his wife Evgenia (to whom the business is registered), director of OJSC Pharmacy in Penza Anton Koloskov, employees of the regional office in Moscow Gennady Markov and Fedor Fedotov, through whom the “dirty money” was transferred to Belozertsev in Penza. Consequence believes that Spiegel paid Belozertsev to receive preferences for government contracts.

Spiegel's company also works with health care institutions in Chuvashia, Mordovia, Mari El, Ulyanovsk, Saratov, Samara and many other cities.

“Many governors should strain”, - Vladimir Kalashnikov, a representative of the National Anti-Corruption Center for the Procurement of Medicines and Medical Equipment, told Novye Izvestia. - The competitive advantages that Spiegel's companies had when concluding contracts in the regions have long caused outrage. Their prices for drugs are higher than in the market as a whole. If a commercial network thinks a hundred times more - to take or not to take - then when purchasing for budget funds for the needs of local health care, there was no such problem. They took, without looking at the price tag, government money ...

Some governors, out of fear of being involved in a corruption scandal, would like to forget about cooperation with disgraced pharmaceutical companies and disown their friendship with the burnt out Belozertsev and Spiegel. In Orel, for example, the head of the region, Andrei Klychkov, found himself in an interesting position because of this. Almost the next day after the high-profile arrests in Moscow and Penza, local publications came out with sensational headlines "The Biotek Group of Companies, which appears in the criminal case, supplied medicines to the Oryol Region". Information about this was found on the public procurement website.

In 2019, Biotek really supplied the region with the drug Abirateron for 1.2 million rubles. The customer was the Department of Economic Development. The deal is not God knows what, but it turned out to be that drop that overflowed the cup of patience with what was happening in the field of Oryol health care. The industry did not shine before, under Klychkov the expected breakthroughs for the better did not happen, on the contrary, the situation is getting worse. People associate this with the appearance on the Oryol horizon of the Penza governor Ivan Belozertsev - before his arrest he was a friend of Klychkov and actively influenced personnel policy in healthcare. Who would doubt that Biotek's pills came to the region also under the patronage of Belozertsev.

How did this friendship come about? In his youth, while still acting, Klychkov went to "gain experience" in Penza. To the governor, who became famous at that time for obliging the heads of his cities and districts to discourage women from abortion, and accused the United States of destabilizing the situation in the village of Chemodanovka after a scuffle between local residents and gypsies. Formally, Klychkov's visit was explained by the fact that he, a stranger in the Oryol region, needed to strengthen connections with new fellow countrymen. Belozertsev was from the village of Baranovo, Livensky District, Oryol Region. Later, he himself, "in a relative way", visited Klychkov, the friendship grew into an agreement between the regions on cooperation in the trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural spheres.

Belozertsev's nephew, Roman Selishchev, became the chief physician of polyclinic No. 3 in Oryol, for this they ousted him from his post as an experienced and respected specialist in the medical community. The sister of the Penza governor was appointed to the health committee of the Oryol regional council. Not without the patronage of a "fellow countryman and friend" was appointed the head of the regional Department of Health Ivan Zalogin, who previously headed the Belgorod Department of Health. In the asset “a worthless manager with minimal experience”, as his colleagues characterize at his former place of work, only the ability to build relationships with the pharmaceutical industry. They say that one well-known Russian company managed to win contracts from his department for a record amount for the country - 3.9 billion rubles. The representative of this company in the Belgorod region was Zalogin's wife, Anna.

The new personnel policy did not have the best effect on the well-being of Oryol health care, the deputy chairman of the regional council Valentina Ostroushko "stabs" the eyes of deputy Klychkov in Twitter. In her opinion, due to thieves and incompetent appointees, talented doctors are forced to leave medical institutions, in the clinics of the crowd, people call forty times to call the doctor at home, coronavirus departments are overcrowded...

"With purchases, too, everything is not ice", - echoes the deputy chairman the activist of the local trade union of doctors Yelena Shuraeva, - It would not hurt to shake the Department of Health. " The last time the PCB shook the department December. Violations - for the prosecutor's check and they are all from the same opera - non-compliance with the law "On the contractual system in the field of procurement", ineffective spending of budget funds. The fact that outraged Oryol residents by no means at all: by October 1, 2020, residents of the region received drugs for a total amount of 1 million 800 thousand rubles, at the same time the department received 102 million 500 thousand for these needs. Where are the "extra" medicines and were there any? Looking for ...

"The science of management in the Oryol region is faced with projection and the interests of a small clan," Valentina Ostroushko makes an unpleasant conclusion for the governor on Twitter. The arrest of Belozertsev should correct the situation - “after all, it was he who taught the local administrators everything bad,” the Orlovites responded with mocking comments. Klychkov is silent. He did not even answer the question of what will now happen with the cooperation agreement with Penza and is it not better to shove it somewhere far away?

The same is advised to their governor - Alexander Bogomaz - residents of the Bryansk region, although there is nothing bad about cooperation with Penza, it seems, did not bring.

“The heads of the regions played hockey together”, - recalls the head of the interregional center “Provincial Russia”, political scientist Sergei Kuzmichev, - In general, they had a lot in common - both left the people, both won the elections, gained more votes than Putin. Belozertsev never missed an opportunity to praise the Bryansk potatoes. The products of the Potato Alliance and Melensky Potato companies, which are owned by the Bogomazov family, are really excellent. After becoming governor, Alexander Vasilyevich retired, the company was headed by his wife Olga and turned out to be a more successful entrepreneur than her husband. Her declared income for 2018, if I'm not mistaken, is 4 billion rubles, her husband-governor has only 4 million.

Whether this had anything to do with the agreement on cooperation between the regions, I will not undertake to assert. In general, few people remembered the mysterious agreement, if Alexander Bogomaz himself had not undertaken to tell his government why he was needed. It was in 2017, Ivan Belozertsev took part in the meeting. Everyone quotes this speech, and I will quote too.

“Many people asked me the question: why the Penza region? This is a different federal district, different climatic and geographical conditions, different soil ... - Bogomaz addressed the audience. - I will say frankly that for me a lot has become a pleasant discovery. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. The Penza region is a region with advanced experience in the implementation of social, economic, agrarian, industrial and cultural policies. Learn from experience and use it! "

After the monstrous scandal and arrest, calls to adopt his experience sound, of course, ambiguous. It is better for the bogomaz to forget about them. Yes, he is now afraid to say a word in defense.

In Penza, no one is going to marry the governor either. Although on September 13, 2020, Belozertsev was triumphantly re-elected for a second governor's term, gaining almost 80% of the vote.

“Even then, he should have been jailed for rigging the results”, - Natalya Gladysheva, an activist of the Left Front, told Novye Izvestia, - Climbed to the throne on the hump of the falsifiers ... We dug under it. Why only losers? All sorts of investigators came from Moscow, REN-TV collected dirt even before the elections. They won't be sent just like that. But something, somewhere, did not grow together completely. We think because of Der Spiegel. You can't catch such a fish right off the bat. The Belozertsevs have it all in plain sight, they grabbed so much that you can't hide it.

In Penza the previous governor Vasily Bochkarev was called "Vasya-Dolya", because he had his own baby in every business. Belozertsev's sons surpassed both Vasya and their own dad. That one - the main business is a pharmacy, inherited from Bochkarev, everything is fine-tuned - sit for yourself and add bribes from Der Spiegel. The predecessor did the same. For ten years, everyone got used to it. Here's interesting: after the arrest over Belozertsev gloat, and the figure of his breadwinner - Boris Shpigel, which should personify oligarchic evil, corruption, corruption of Penza souls, etc. does not cause such feelings. “We are not touching him,” answered all the interlocutors whom “NI” managed to catch from Moscow by phone. Some have never even seen him in Penza, although he was a senator from the region and is the largest regional oligarch. Someone remembered Spiegel as the former father-in-law of Nikolai Baskov, who was taken here to charity concerts. One interlocutor was amazed at the abundance of artistic tastes recorded by operatives during a search in the house of Boris Spiegel. She asked how much the rare manual "Masturbation in women and men" published in 1925 could cost.

Perhaps we were simply unlucky, but Penza amicably assigns the palm in corruption not to this nice pharmacist, who did not crawl out of the shadows, but to the governor's family, which was turning in the open.

In fact, the owner of the region was not Ivan Aleksandrovich Belozertsev, but his eldest son, Alexander Ivanovich. Under the pope-governor, Alexander Belozertsev managed to work as the Minister of Economy and Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Penza Region, then switched to real estate and electricity. Owns thousands of square meters, four commercial companies, squeezing everything that moved from under his feet. The second son, Daniel, is also engaged in business, he has a wide profile - from funeral services to car washes and cafes. It's also cool with competitors: either give up or get out of town.

“Half a billion rubles that were found in Belozertsev’s boxes are our tears”, a small business representative told NI. "If he returned them, many would have recovered, they would have gone up the hill." As for "returned", it is unlikely, the governor was distinguished by a fair amount of triviality, even saved on the glorification of his own person. Penza residents are still in shock from the last case. Shortly before the arrest, a fundraiser was announced in schools and kindergartens for portraits of the first person of the state and Belozertsev himself. It was planned to decorate the classrooms with faces. Under the pressure of indignant parents, the idea was abandoned. The Belozertsev family did not want to pay, citing that it was "inconvenient".

Drag Penza up the hill also gathered not on their own shoulders, but at the expense of visiting investors. During his entire governor's term, Belozertsev said that investors are already on the way, the region is becoming economically attractive, there are many plans, and serious people are ready to invest. Some daredevil found himself, tiled all of Penza with tiles, laid the remains on the roof of the Filatov Children's Hospital and disappeared without a trace. None of the serious investors appeared.

“They won't appear now”, - anonymous experts moan in the telegram channel “Tvoya Penza”, - The arrest of the governor is a political defeat for the region. Belozertsev was already reminded of his message that it is necessary to fight bribery. We do not make excuses for the governor, by his act he let everyone down, the whole region. Questioned its further economic and political independence. Many experts no longer see the Penza region as an independent entity. The unification with the Saratov province is getting closer and closer".

Ordinary people do not look so far and are sure that the change of the governor does not threaten with new problems, on the contrary, for some time the situation will freshen up.

It didn't take long to guess. Yesterday Federal TV channels reported that Oleg Melnichenko, Head of the Federation Council Committee, could become a likely candidate for the post of Acting Governor of the Penza Region. Not quite a Varangian - a senator from Penza and, it seems, has already reached it.