The Governor and his Family became the Masters of the region. But tripped over the little prosecutor

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Columnist "KP" Vladimir Vorsobin - about a story that could have happened in any region and republic of the country. And in many - it happens. Therefore, everyone will surely see (in full or in strokes) here and a reflection of their region [Part 1]

And the journalist "KP" went to the very center of Russia - to the Republic of Mordovia. The eyes of the local population were suddenly "opened": the region, it turns out, turned into a private household of the governor's clan, and no one knows what to do about it. Leaving it as it is is not good. Destroy - the whole republic will collapse.

Paradox?

No, Russia…

SERVICE TO THE MOTHERLAND OR "VERTICAL"?

- You are not a 10-year-old child to start a hopeless criminal case, - Mordovia's deputy prosecutor Myaldzin spoke in a fatherly way, obviously trying to save the interlocutor …

- I want to achieve justice, - the voice of the provincial Dubensky district prosecutor Filippov, on the contrary, wheezed with excitement.

- Well done. What's next?

- Life will show.

Sigh.

- You see, - said Myaldzin. - If each prosecutor decides what is fair and what is not, we will go far. You burned all the bridges.

- I understand, - Filippov wheezes. - Burned …

- You still understand …

The Deputy Prosecutor was nervous - why did he have to explain simple, fundamental things for the country! How can you not absorb them with mother's milk ?! Not to memorize in the student body? Do not drive yourself into a stubborn head when working in other district prosecutor's offices, finally …

“We serve the vertical of power,” Myaldzin finally sighed. - This is our task. Understand?

- I serve the Motherland directly! People! - rapped Filippov.

- What about ?! Directly ?!

The Deputy Prosecutor of Mordovia burst out laughing, admiring Filippov's stupidity …

- Only priests can directly serve - God. Or are you a prophet ?!

- And even if only a prophet! - the subordinate grinned. - I can predict that tomorrow I will be reprimanded again.

- You are an adult, you must understand …

Silence.

“Call off your complaints,” Myaldzin finally said quietly.

- And you remove the reprimands?

- You are a strange man! - bitterly exclaimed the deputy prosecutor of Mordovia and nodded. - Good. Six months later.

He had no idea that Filippov had a dictaphone in his pocket.

ENCHANTED CAREER

Two years later, the former prosecutor Filippov, already expelled from Mordovia, will hand me a flash drive with this record and dryly say:

- One thing I can not understand - I took crooks. Why were they fired ?!

In Dubenki, Filippov is respected precisely for this immediacy.

A new prosecutor had arrived, they said when he was appointed. Young. I did not cling to the people for trifles. And I somehow found an illegal sand pit that everyone knew about. Especially the local head, deputies, policemen and previous prosecutors too …

They knew something, but they could not find it. They lacked something to see the quarry. KamAZ trucks loaded with stolen sand went to the construction site of the World Cup in the capital of Mordovia, Saransk. Cars crashed local roads, evil residents even blocked the streets, not letting the trucks … But where they were coming from, no one officially knew.

As the hero of Khazanov said: “We know who, where, when, but we cannot prove anything. There is nothing to catch on!"

Because the quarry belonged to the Family …

What's this? - ask.

Do you really need to explain ?!

Yes, in any region, they will point you to a villa or a whole village and whisper: "Governor's". Or they will laugh: "Brother, don't even ask, you won't believe it anyway!"

Or here.

Once we walked with the head of Mari El Leonid Markelov at the Kremlin built by him in Yoshkar-Ola (so far without the mausoleum, but already with the chimes, the family coat of arms and relatives settled there). And a couple of months before the arrest Markelov managed to tell me: “Yes, this is all mine! Nobody wanted to invest here. One very tall man in Moscow said: invest, buy, take the region yourself, or nothing will work out. I invested …"

Not good, the reader will frown. And squeeze his nose. Is it worth it to disdain for millennia? In Russia, from time immemorial, ministries, industries, regions quietly "left" to the families of leaders. Everyone knows that thanks to good genetics, the children of officials and security officials are born as talented billionaires, thereby ensuring the country's continuity, stability and creativity.

And imagine that in the midst of this cozy family idyll, some district prosecutor starts an outrageous, if not anti-state, criminal case.

On the father-in-law of the niece of Nikolai Merkushkin himself! On a relative of a very rare in Russia governor of two regions at once - Mordovia and the Samara region.

- Well, I didn't know that he was a relative! - Prosecutor Filippov almost got baptized.

He, of course, did not understand what he had done. That because of his stubbornness will happen to Mordovia.

The same ill-fated career in which the Merkushkin Family got stuck. Photo: VLADIMIR VORSOBIN

WHO IS MERKUSHKIN?

Great person.

It is enough to look at Saransk when the train quietly sneaks up to the station. Here it is - radiant.

Before Merkushkin, my native Saransk was a thoroughly provincial, penicillin-smelling (from accidents at a medical plant) proletarian town. Green, moderately cozy, with a quiet grove behind the House of Soviets, where the townspeople walked their dogs under the windows of the first secretary of the regional committee. Saransk did not seem to plan to get out of the boondocks … The money from Moscow went to the construction of Soviet enterprises, factories and factories. People worked some on the "tidy" (instrument-making plant), some on the lamp, some on the "rubber band" (Rezinotekhnika). The economy grew calmly, part of the money went to cinemas, clubs, parks. Moreover, they were built somehow between times, without a grand scale - with provincial modesty.

Here is the symbol of the "obsolete era" - the first secretary of the Mordovian regional committee of the CPSU, Anatoly Berezin, quietly walked without protection in the city park that had not yet been cut down … The last leader of the Domerkushka Mordovia will die in poverty, having surrendered the privileges to the state: an apartment, a Volga and a state house - a log one-story hut.

- Everyone leaves in their own way, - Berezin will say. - It's just scary that they, having destroyed, will build?

You are looking through the carriage window …

Rich churches, pompous spiers of skyscrapers of Moscow State University (Mordovia State University), sports palaces, hotels, avenues, shopping centers, granite splashes of monuments float there. No grove, no dog lover. All around the tiles. Curbs. Tile. Curbs.

But … If only the bandits' yard in the south-west of Saransk, where we guys had been discussing the arrival of the Voronezh Fakel in our hole for a whole year, were told that the World Cup would be held in Mordovia, and the Peruvians and Ecuadorians would roam the yards in herds, begging to surrender them a room that Depardieu will register in the Saransk apartment and in a Mordovian shirt will show the Russian passport to journalists who have gathered from all over the world … If someone told that the impassable Mordovian roads would become almost the best in the region … Yes, the oracle would be beaten for such a "blizzard"!

But the Great Merkushkin did it! Old man Berezin, of course, would have asked in the Soviet way: what is the economic use of palaces and a stadium? And for what money?.. But then the Forbidden Zone begins, where Prosecutor Filippov got involved with his sandy quarry.

“I managed to initiate a criminal case,” Filippov said. “And although it was stopped almost immediately, we managed to see where the money was going. The sand was used for construction for the World Cup, and then … There is such a web! From almost all large enterprises, it turns out, cash flows went to one point … I began to figure out - what is it?"

KEY OF THE REPUBLIC

The presentiment that something was wrong with Mordovia arose back in the 2000s, when, reading the newspapers, it seemed to people - well. Finally. Happiness!

The face of the Great M. did not leave the front pages. The republic was built, earned, the ruling party collected, as political scientists laughed, 102 - 105% of the vote, and all living things were delighted. Billions of incomprehensible money fell on little Saransk. They explained to the people honestly. Guys, it's simple. You vote as it should, we are selling your votes to Moscow for transfers and loans. If you fail the next vote and they give us a shish, blame yourself. And poor agrarian Mordovia was proud of the correct vote … And not only that.

I remember how touchingly Merkushkin in the Moscow "White House" told a personal journalistic pool about a meeting with Moscow officials (I ended up there on a different matter, but heard a painfully dear voice. - V. V.).

- We knocked out money for the construction of the university! Yes, what! - Nikolai Ivanovich smiled broadly. - Billions! At the rate of three thousand rubles per square meter! But in reality (lowering his voice conspiratorially) he is not even worth two …

I mentioned Merkushkin's careless words in a report in KP … Nothing. No IC, no prosecutor's office, no movement, no call …

Merkushkin's invulnerability was mystical. Back in 1991, during the post-perestroika division of offices, he, a former Komsomol leader, got a trifling (as it seemed to everyone) position of head of the Property Fund. In fact, the smiling guy was presented with the keys to the republic.

After the Chubais privatization, the fund disposed of 20% of the shares of all enterprises in Mordovia. The family, buying up vouchers, invested them in shares. And soon she owned (or controlled through affiliated owners) almost everything. It is pointless to list the assets of the Head, his brothers, children, nephews, friends, classmates, etc. Moscow economists somehow tried to calculate the annual turnover of the Family, suffered for a long time, stopped at a billion, but made a reservation - "only officially."

The construction was carried out by the elder brother Alexander ("Saranskstroyzakazchik", "Saranskstroyinvest" and more than 30 firms and organizations). The production of building materials at Mordovcement is the same brother and nephew. The food industry - from poultry to a confectionery factory and a cannery - was given to children. Financial system (Aktiv-bank and Mordovpromstroybank) - to brother and nephew. The fuel business, a network of gas stations, most of the collective farms are also in the Family …

As a source in the government of Mordovia will tell me later, "Merkushkin himself does not know perfectly what belongs to him, his economy is too large."

And if someone from the faint of heart now throws his hands in and says:

- Mafia!

Then I, with my hand on my Mordovian heart, will answer resolutely - no!

TRACE OF KHODORKOVSKY

Because in the interfluve of the Sura and Moksha rivers, an unexplored phenomenon arose - having received the economy of an entire subject at its disposal, the Family treated it like a native. Enterprises were not plundered, they were not torn to pieces. On the contrary, having gained control over them, the Family developed the republic, which means its own business (remember Markelov's: “A tall man in Moscow said: invest yourself, or nothing will work out …”). So the interests of the People and the Official coincided. The family gave people jobs, rebuilt Saransk, paid taxes and somehow kept the republic afloat. And this disarmed Moscow.

- Somehow the center sent a large sum of money for the development of medium-sized businesses. I’ll note the whole of Mordovia,”one prominent businessman, once a former deputy of the State Council of the republic, told me. - And we all vote honestly - send them to the "family" poultry farm. Because "this is the pride of our industry and we need to show it to Moscow."

The feds, of course, saw obvious coincidences between the Merkushkin pocket and the state one, but such is the bureaucratic essence of Moscow - according to reports, Mordovia was in bloom. And you never know in Russia strong business executives-governors …

Likewise, Merkushkin got away with even the obvious cheating with Yukos!

Once Nikolai Ivanovich and Khodorkovsky shook hands and Mordovia established a zero tax rate for the future political exile. Moreover, Merkushkin made Nevzlin (sentenced to life in absentia) his senator! And oil flowed through Saransk abroad through cunning Mordovian firms. The grateful YUKOS paid off generously - donated a couple of billions to the local Sozidanie Foundation. And the fund, of course, is also in “family hands”.

Later, at the trial, it will be revealed that three quarters of all charges against Khodorkovsky are "Mordovian affairs".

Enemies of Merkushkin blame him for this story.

“I was already thinking then: what is Merkushkin himself turning into? - said the former federal inspector for the republic, Alexander Pykov. - Then it became clear: everything is only for the benefit of the interests of the Family! It was sheer madness! When it was announced at the session of the State Assembly that we were granting tax breaks to YUKOS, some of the deputies were indignant. They ask: "Where is the law?" "We have already accepted it!" - is heard in response. "But we didn't discuss anything!" - "And we have it with the help of polls." - "And who, excuse me, were interviewed, who did they call?" Yes, no one … That is, in the office behind the scenes, the law was signed. That is, everything served only one purpose - the income of the Family. This was the ultimate goal. Yes, we sent messages to Moscow. Merkushkin, of course, was pulled back, but …"

Although, in fact, Saransk and Moscow understood each other perfectly.

Transfers, grants, loans for gigantic construction projects went to Mordovia - all this went to the enterprises of Merkushkin. And there, with control over everything - from cement to bank transfer - a penny to a penny, zealously remained in the Family. Everyone is happy! Moscow - a quiet, happy region, Family - gold-bearing construction sites, new loans, residents - a prettier city. Questions from economists who are quietly wondering: at whose expense is the banquet? who will give loans? - seemed ridiculous … Once the right hand of Merkushkin, his chief political strategist Nyazif Yenaleev (now deceased) proved to me: “Well, what are you all: debts, debts! Look how much we've built! This is for centuries. And what about the money - pieces of paper. The US has such a debt, and does not worry. Why give away? They'll write it off!"

“And they copied,” agrees an anonymous source in the local government. - But then the attitude towards the republic, whose debts had outgrown its own GDP, changed … Moscow increasingly began to ask: what will you give back? Soon the townspeople, whose salaries in "Prosperous Mordovia" remained one of the lowest in the country (66th out of 85), began to look askance at the Cyclopean stadium, suspecting something …

But while the Family is in force. Nikolai Ivanovich, leaving his people on the farm, goes for a promotion - as a governor in the Samara region.

And the same stubborn prosecutor Filippov, who served not the "vertical", but the people. Photo: VLADIMIR VORSOBIN

WHAT WAS NEXT

“Let's go for broke. And it started!"

Meanwhile, the Dubensky District Prosecutor Sergei Filippov, already forgotten by us, is initiating an ordinary criminal case. On the head of the illegal quarry - an ordinary peasant from the village of Povodimovo, a certain Kulikov, who collected money from each car loaded with sand (without cash and taxes, of course).

- I was already surprised, - the ex-prosecutor recalls, - why nobody took sand from a legal quarry nearby, and this one seems to have provided almost the entire construction site for the World Cup. And then they called me …

Further, I quote the complaint of the prosecutor Filippov to the Prosecutor General's Office:

“When the recording of the facts of the export and sale of sand from the quarry was started, I received a call from the judge of the Leninsky District Court of Saransk, Kulikova Inna Viktorovna, who explained that she was the daughter of the sister of the former head of the Republic of Mordovia … She also explained to me that I got into their family business and if I do not stop checking the career belonging to their family, then I will have big problems with the current head of the republic, Volkov V. D.

That the deputy prosecutor of the republic Aleksey Berezin (yes, the son of that very kind secretary of the regional committee. - V. V.), who is the husband of her sister (Merkushkina) and also “a member of their family”, will take all necessary measures to dismiss me from my post.”

“I went to the republic's prosecutor, Machinsky,” Filippov sighed. - And he asked: what to do? Fight with the Family ?! To fight with your own deputy, who, it turns out, also managed to become related with the former governor? But Machinsky said: the main thing is to work honestly, and I don’t give up mine … I went for broke! (He grins grimly.)