Samara-town... Unmercenary Merkushkin, a seven-fold advantage in the income of the Prime Minister's wife and dislike for Ladam. The LDPR appreciated the resignation of Merkushkin from the post of governor of the Samara region Merkushkin Nikolai Ivanovich resignation of the year

15:44 — REGNUM Samara region stirred up political news. First, the FSB arrested the “personal governor’s sociologist” Nikolai Yavkin, who is suspected of embezzling 9.5 million budget rubles allegedly for conducting a sociological survey. The second - the head of the region Nikolai Merkushkin called on the carpet by the head of the presidential administration Sergei Kirienko, after which the main news came from Moscow - sources in the Kremlin told RBC that Merkushkin would be removed next week.

Merkushkin himself keeps silent and does not give any comments. Head of his press office Ilya Chernyshev gave an indistinct explanation that the governor's work schedule is very tight and scheduled for several weeks in advance: he has events scheduled for the coming weekend as well. Like, everything is regular, in working mode.

Political scientists, speaking about the fact that the topic of Merkushkin's resignation has been repeatedly discussed, confirm that the socio-economic and political situation in the region has heated up to the limit. Powerful expansion into the region of "Mordovian business", conflicts with large financial groups, including with Rostec, may induce the Kremlin to resolve the issue of “liquidating the irritant” in the Samara region on the eve of the presidential elections, although so far negative and neutrally benevolent signals from the federal center have balanced the positions of 66-year-old Nikolai Merkushkin.

Rumors are grounded

Member of the Samara Provincial Duma Mikhail Matveev emphasizes that rumors about the resignation of Governor Merkushkin appear with enviable regularity, but so far they have never been confirmed, although they indicate that the possibility of his resignation is really being considered.

“I would not associate this solely with the presence of some ill-wishers making artificial stuffing, but with the objective socio-economic situation of the Samara region, which has deteriorated significantly during Merkushkin’s governorship,” he said. - The state debt of the region has doubled, exceeding 70 billion rubles, and its build-up continues. Dozens of enterprises in agriculture and industry were closed. Due to the actions of the regional government to sharply reduce the level of social support for pensioners, the ratings of the authorities and Merkushkin personally have fallen catastrophically.”

Founder of the Russian Association of Political Consultants Oleg Molchanov also draws attention to the economic background. According to him, a new wave of talk about the removal of Merkushkin has risen due to serious violations in preparation for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, big problems with the implementation of the May presidential decrees, a fall in industrial production, and so on.

“The fact that the governor, when considering the state of affairs in the region, says figures that do not correspond to reality, did not add confidence. Also, the excessive help of business from Mordovia, which began to control most of the economic spheres of the Samara region, ”he believes.

Analyst at the Agency for Political and Economic Communications Mikhail Neizhmakov believes that the next wave of rumors about the resignation of Merkushkin is connected not with new serious scandals, but with long-standing ideas about the precarious position of this governor. Many expect a massive autumn rotation in the gubernatorial corps, which is why they assume that the heads of regions, whose departure has been talked about for a long time, will be the first to be hit. Meanwhile, changes in the governor's corps this fall are, of course, possible. But the federal center, in fact, has no sharp reasons to force events and make such decisions without fail in the fall.

Shaky positions of Merkushkin

“The high probability of gubernatorial resignations right now is explained by the Kremlin’s desire to strengthen the rear on the eve of the presidential elections. During the presidential campaign, the federal agenda interrupts the regional one much more than during the parliamentary race. Under the current conditions, protest voting in the presidential elections may be connected, first of all, with the old pockets of such sentiments, which it will be extremely difficult for even a very capable governor to “extinguish”. That is, the replacement of the governor in such a situation will have very little effect on the results of the presidential race in the region,” Neizhmakov commented.

Nikolai Merkushkin over the past few months has received both negative and neutral-benevolent signals from the federal center. Everyone remembers, for example, two messages about problems in the Samara region at once on the Direct Line with Vladimir Putin in June 2017. But earlier, on May 23, a meeting of the Samara governor with Dmitry Medvedev, their communication took place in a neutral and benevolent manner. That is, the replacement of the Samara governor cannot be ruled out, but when it happens is not so obvious, the expert noted.

Attempts to solve the problem of the split of authorities within the subjects of the Federation, as, for example, in the Samara region, were reduced to sending external players there, as expected, independent of internal clan alignments and internal inter-clan struggle, notes Chief Editor IA REGNUM. Even the very successful head of Mordovia Merkushkin, once in the Samara region, turned into a public operator of internal conflicts, scandals and discord.

Confrontation with the Samara elite

According to political strategist Grigory Kazankov, there is a contradiction between the principles of governance, to which Governor Nikolai Merkushkin is committed, and the level of socio-economic and political development of the Samara region.

“The administration of the Samara governor does not comply with the laws by which the region lives,” he clarified. - And, of course, Merkushkin is in conflict, in conflict with large financial groups, and with local businesses, and with active passionate citizens. The Samara region does not understand Merkushkin, and Merkushkin does not understand the region. The story of the resignation of the governor is difficult to predict. The gubernatorial elections are far away, so Samara residents themselves will not be able to re-elect him, everything is in the hands of the federal government.”

Governor Merkushkin quarreled with local elites and the opposition, deputy Matveev explains. The conflict is based on three factors. One of them is economic. With the advent of Merkushkin, a global redistribution of the region's market took place in favor of the "Mordovian business": instead of Samara cement, it began to be used everywhere from Mordovcement. Store shelves were filled with agricultural products from Mordovia (eggs, chickens, sausages, cheese). Companies associated with Mordovia began to receive the largest contracts in the field of construction and repair. At the same time, almost all poultry farms were closed in the Samara region, many of which, for example, Obsharovskaya, were of a backbone character for their regions.

“Often conflicts occur not only because of the powerful expansion of the “Mordovian business” in the region, pushing local players aside, but sometimes literally “from scratch” due to the personality of the governor and his uncompromising leadership style,” he emphasizes.

Conflict with Rostec

Matveev draws attention to the fact that political scientists often mention a certain conflict between Merkushkin and the head of Rostec Chemezov, but there is no objective evidence of its existence or any actions on the part of Rostec. At the same time, Governor Merkushkin himself can be suspected of such actions.

“In particular, it is known that, according to the testimony of a long time working for the Samara White House black political technologist Dmitry Begun (criminal case of bloggers) in the list of figures denigrated at the direction of the head of the region, there were representatives of Rostec, and the content of most of the governor's public speeches in the first years of his tenure was endless criticism of the state of affairs in the region under his predecessor, the governor Vladimir Artyakov(representative of Rostec). The state of affairs at AvtoVAZ and its subsidiaries (Rostec is the main shareholder of the Togliatti automobile plant) did not receive practical support from the Merkushkin team. Suffice it to recall that the promising Lada Vesta model developed under Vladimir Artyakov by Togliatti engineers under Merkushkin was transferred to Izhevsk for assembly, and with it the region lost about 200 million rubles a year in taxes and employment for thousands of AvtoVAZ workers. , said Matthew.

After numerous scandals, the Kremlin decided to "remove" Samara Governor Nikolai Merkushkin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo: stolica-s.su

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

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

Owned - one garage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sales leaders

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

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

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

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

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

Rich wives and a non-poor husband

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

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

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

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

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

In 2015, Grishin declared 13.35 million rubles of income and two apartments in individual ownership - 163 and 155 sq. meters. At the same time, the wife of the ex-minister Yulia, director of Saranskneft LLC, showed income of 25.36 million rubles (the total income of the spouses, therefore, amounted to 38.71 million rubles) and several real estate objects, among which a house with an area of ​​1,747 square meters stands out. m and a garage of 242 sq. meters.

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

Rustem Shakirov