On September 25, Vladimir Putin accepted the resignation of the Governor of the Samara Region, Nikolai Merkushkin. Earlier, RBC sources reported that he may leave his post due to a conflict between him and Rostec CEO Sergei Chemezov

Nikolay Merkushkin

• Merkushkin is 66 years old. He was born in Mordovia and began his working career there as a machine operator on a collective farm. He studied at Mordovian State University, where his uncle Grigory Yakovlevich Merkushkin was the rector. Received a diploma with honors.
• He first ran for the presidential elections in Mordovia in 1990, but did not make it past the first round. He held economic positions in the government of the republic.
• In 1993, Merkushkin refused the offer to become the presidential representative in the Republic of Mordovia. In November he joined the Federation Council and only in 1995, as a result of elections, was elected head of the region. He held this position for almost 17 years.
• In 2012, Vladimir Putin appointed Merkushkin as acting governor of the Samara region. According to the voting results in June 2014, Merkushkin scored 91.35% and took office in September.

• Merkushkin has two sons. The appointment of the youngest, Alexey, to the positions of general director of OJSC Lamzur S and chairman of the board of directors of CB Mordovpromstroybank aroused criticism from the presidential administration, the Izvestia newspaper wrote in 2013. “Novaya Gazeta” and “Radio Liberty” in their investigations pointed to the affiliation of other relatives of Merkushkin with Mordovian companies.

According to the Kartoteka database, members of the governor’s family - brother Alexander Merkushkin and nephew Sergei Merkushkin - until mid-2016 were on the list of owners of the Mordovcement enterprise, which received a monopoly order for the supply of cement for the construction of the Samara Arena stadium for the World Cup. football 2018.

• Merkushkin's last years as governor were remembered for a number of scandalous statements. In June 2015, he called for "prayers for pensions" as "the country's reserves are running out." In August 2016, at a meeting with residents of the Komsomolsky district of the city of Togliatti, in response to a complaint from an employee of the AvtoVAZagregat subsidiary about systematic non-payment of salaries, the governor said that her debts would never be paid.

Nikolai Merkushkin and Vladimir Putin (Photo: official website of the government of the Samara region)

— Nikolai Ivanovich, I am a former employee of the long-suffering AvtoVAZagregat enterprise, its subsidiary Poshiv-AvtoVAZagregat. I would like to know when will our salary arrears be paid? It’s already the second year, there were so many promises...

- Well, what do I want to say? If you speak in such a tone, never! Never! Those who warm you up, ask them.

- Excuse me, please, but I think I speak normally. Because this is the second year without a salary.

- I know. Listen! Listen to me now. That’s when, including the American ambassador, he came to warm up just these people, and then they were shown to the whole world for a month. To the whole world!

A few days later Merkushkin talked about why it is necessary to go to the polls, and emphasized, that if it does not receive 97% of support, then people will themselves be to blame for the fact that nothing is being done for them. The governor also reminded those gathered that in 2012, almost all of Mordovia responded to his call to vote for Putin, so those affected by the flood in the republic were compensated for everything, “right down to the rotten fence.”

• In September 2016, the Alexei Navalny Anti-Corruption Foundation published a video. Foundation employees found the estates of Merkushkin, as well as his son and business partners on Rublyovka, the value of which was estimated at 866 million rubles. In response to this, Merkushkin accused Navalny of “executing the Dulles plan” and called him “the second Saakashvili.”

“Because this chaos that Dulles has, everything is confused, everything is confused in their heads, they really want to preserve this chaos. This chaos is needed, when the time comes to throw a match, this chaos will immediately create a fire.

They want to divide us into 32 states, so that the word “Russia” is never heard. As Dulles said, to end this unruly people once and for all, once and for all.”

• In January 2017, the FAS opened a case against Merkushkin and some government officials. They were accused of lobbying Gazprom's interests in the regional market, which could force local gas companies out of the market. In May, FAS violated the law on protection of competition by Merkushkin.

A senior Kremlin source said that "Merkushkin was told to pack his things." At the end of next week, Nikolai Ivanovich must leave his post. Mr. Merkushkin is a rare personality in Russian politics, which has begun to displease everyone: from residents of the region, oppositionists and anti-corruption fighters to the Presidential Administration and Vladimir Putin personally. Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov, speaking about Merkushkin's resignation, said that the Kremlin “traditionally does not announce” personnel decisions. Apparently, Nikolai Ivanovich is really being “leaked.” Is resignation imminent? Let us note that in February of this year, pensioners on benefits and representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Liberal Democratic Party took to the streets of Samara with a rally; Merkushkin was able to unite parties that, to put it mildly, do not like each other. The governor canceled unlimited travel due to the fact that “the money that goes to pay for transport for beneficiaries (500-600 million rubles) is stolen.” Maybe it was necessary to remove those who kidnap from their positions, and not cancel benefits!? This was preceded by Nikolai Ivanovich’s unprecedentedly arrogant attitude towards the population. For example, a politician, when asked by AvtoVAZ workers, “when will the regional authorities pay off their wage debts to the workers (for 2 years),” said that “never” if the interlocutor “continues the dialogue in this tone.” The most interesting thing is that Merkushkin did not stop being indignant at this and said that the workers should address the same question to US Ambassador John Tefft! They really steal from Merkushkin “immensely.” So, in 2015, the Samara Region Development Corporation, which belongs to the authorities and received from 2.2 to 3.2 billion rubles of budget money for the construction of a poultry farm, did not build anything. Where the money is is also unknown. Federal money is also disappearing. Let us remind you that Samara is one of the cities where the 2018 FIFA World Cup will be held. The Merkushkin administration received 10 billion rubles for the stadium. Having spent everything, Merkushkin at the end of 2016 asked for another 11 billion rubles! As a result, Merkushkin was given 8.2 billion rubles. And what? The stadium has not been built, the Merkushkin administration is replacing the arena materials with cheaper ones! We also note that the FAS initiated “proceedings against Merkushkin, his officials and Gazprom employees as part of suspicions of violations in the gas transportation market in the region.” “Despite the presence of at least two gas distribution organizations in the Samara region (SVGK and Gazprom Gas Distribution Samara), such an adjustment to the scheme was adopted without the consent of SVGK. The antimonopoly service also revealed that the company had comments regarding this scheme, which were brought to the Ministry of Energy and Housing and Communal Services of the Samara Region, but were not taken into account,” the antimonopoly service reports on its website. Rumors that the Presidential Administration is dissatisfied with Merkushkin appeared a long time ago. Nikolai Ivanovich even tried to rub it in to Putin about supposedly bad products that were imported from other regions and from abroad. Experts say that the politician wanted to extract subsidies for production in Samara for his relatives, whom he actively imports to the region. But Merkushkin failed to deceive the president... Instead of subsidies, Merkushkin received a scolding. How Merkushkin settles in his relatives Let us recall that Merkushkin headed the Samara region in 2012. Before that, from 1995 to 2012, Nikolai Ivanovich headed Mordovia. What is the situation in the republic? Almost the entire business is controlled by Nikolai Ivanovich’s relatives! But the worst thing is that, having come to Samara, Merkushkin began to transport related businesses with him. Merkushkin found the reason strange. The governor said that “Samara companies are scamming people” and “entrepreneurs should follow the example of Mordovia”! For example, in 2015, “Mordovcement, considered affiliated with the head of the Samara region Nikolai Merkushkin, moved closer to the concerned governor.” In the Kuibyshevsky district of Samara, a company close to Mordovcement PJSC (affiliated with Merkushkin’s relatives) “won” the tender for the construction of a residential microdistrict (425 thousand sq.m.). By the way, Merkushkin’s “Mordovtsement” is already working as a supplier in the construction of a stadium for the 2018 FIFA World Cup!!! That's how it is! So, the governor asked for 11 billion rubles, among other things, for his relatives’ business? To transfer the business, changes were made that would allegedly hide the company's affiliation with the governor. Thus, in 2014, Mordovcement came under the control of Chevre Investments Limited. In business circles in Mordovia they say that the Merkushkins own the offshore. The “example of Mordovia” is actually the monopolization of business by Merkushkin’s relatives. We will list only some of the companies that are controlled by Nikolai Ivanovich’s relatives: Saransky Cannery OJSC, Masloprodukt LLC, Aktiv Bank OJSC, Cement LLC, Design and Construction Holding Company Saranskstroyzakazchik OJSC and many others . In addition to controlling numerous companies, Merkushkin also became famous for raiding! The case of Lyambir farmers who “did not want to submit to the raider seizure of their lands, which were encroached upon by the structures of Saransky Cannery OJSC, owned by Alexander Merkushkin, the son of the now former head of Mordovia, is widely known in the republic. At the same time, all administrative and security structures were on the side of the raiders. For example, a tractor sowing spring crops was arrested... as part of Operation Anti-Terror. According to the press, custom criminal cases were opened against those who opposed the interests of the Merkushkin clan. One of the farmers was given a suspended sentence of two and a half years.” Returning to Merkushkin’s resignation, it must be said that the decision to remove Nikolai Ivanovich was also influenced by the head of Rostec, Sergei Chemezov, who was in conflict with the politician. “It was Chemezov who brought him (Merkushkin) at one time. But after a while, conflicts began, because Chemezov wanted people to dance to his tune, and Merkushkin is a man of the old school who did not do this,” said an informed source. If Merkushkin had been an effective governor, probably the conflict with Chemezov would not have become the “breaking point” for the Administration. But Nikolai Ivanovich’s open rudeness towards the workers of the region, the relocation of related businesses and failure in the socio-economic sphere are those things that can undoubtedly influence the decision of Samara residents in the 2018 Presidential elections. So Merkushkin’s upcoming resignation is, first of all, a political move. One way or another, Nikolai Ivanovich is living out his last weeks in his post.

The Kremlin has begun the promised “autumn rotation” of governors: the first blow fell on the Volga Federal District

Today the Samara administration will introduce the new acting governor Dmitry Azarov. Nikolai Merkushkin, who was suddenly dismissed on Putin’s instructions, will now begin to deal with the Finno-Ugric peoples. BUSINESS Online experts discuss why the “Varangian model” turned out to be unprofitable for Samara, how the new head of the region can restore the lost intra-elite peace and who Dmitry Azarov is.

Apparently, with the departure of Nikolai Merkushkin (left) in the Samara region, the Varangian experiment, which lasted two five-year plans, endedPhoto: kremlin.ru

“THEY TOLD ME: “IN TWO WEEKS WE CAN SHOT HIM IN THE HEAD”

The ancients believed that the most honored shamans and warriors who died in a fierce battle went to the Finno-Ugric paradise of Saivaimo. Governor of the Samara region Nikolay Merkushkin was “delighted” there alive: straight from the leadership chair he moved to the mysterious position of “special presidential representative for interaction with the World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples.” The corresponding decree was signed on September 25 Vladimir Putin- immediately after he satisfied Merkushkin’s application to leave Samara of his own free will. What Nikolai Ivanovich will do now, probably even he himself does not know - the functionality of the “special representative” has not yet been spelled out. But there is no doubt that this is a kind of “bureaucratic paradise”: before this, only the well-deserved from all sides was assigned to the rank of “special representatives” Sergey Ivanov, who previously headed the presidential administration and is now responsible for environmental issues, ecology and transport. And even though some consider this a sinecure and an honorable exile, we know that it is much worse to have an exile that is not an honorable exile, but a very real one. This has already happened, for example, Nikita Belykh, Leonida Markelov And Alexandra Solovyova. This is probably the “governor’s hell”, and it is called “Lefortovo”. But somewhere there is heaven, and now we know its name for sure: “special representative of the president.”

Merkushkin himself, apparently, is perfectly aware of how extremely lucky he is. At a press conference in Samara yesterday, he told reporters with a sigh: “The direction to which I was appointed is extremely important for the head of state and the presidential administration. This structure is new, just starting to work.”

However, someone probably misled Nikolai Ivanovich, because “this structure” is by no means new. The first congress of Finno-Ugric peoples took place in December 1992 in Syktyvkar and since then has been held periodically every four years ( in 2016 it took place in Finland, and in 2020 it is planned in Estonia – approx. ed.). But what does 1992 mean for 66-year-old Merkushkin? Yesterday. At that time he himself headed the state property fund of Mordovia. And in general, his whole life was connected with this national republic, where he was born back in 1951 and where it was relatively easy for him to begin his studies and career, since the uncle of the future head of Mordovia headed the local university. Nikolai Ivanovich himself has ruled the republic since 1995, but in September 2012 he was overtaken by Putin’s first rotation: Merkushkin was torn from his loving Mordovian breast and thrown into the Samara region, which was alien to him, where, they say, he never really settled down over the past years. five years since then.

Nevertheless, looking back at his Samara five-year plan from the Finno-Ugric paradise of Saivaimo, Merkushkin could not deny himself the pleasure of admitting that in the region entrusted to him “the situation has leveled out, the main trends that are moving the region forward have started, work has been established.”

Let us note that Merkushkin was not the first Varangian for Samara: he served the previous five-year term (2007 - 2012) in his chair Vladimir Artyakov, a close associate and colleague in the engineering workshop of the current general director of the Rostec corporation Sergei Chemezov. And only Artyakov’s predecessor, Konstantin Titov, who headed the region since 1996, was indigenous to the region (he began his career in the Kuibyshev City Council). But since Titov left for the Federation Council of the Russian Federation in 2007, Samara has been led by people “appointed from Moscow” or “appointed by Moscow,” which was initially received ambiguously by the Samara elite.

“When I came here, I was amazed at how rooted the foundations of the 90s were here,” Merkushkin shared his memories yesterday at a farewell briefing for the media. “One of my subordinates told me the words of one of those who held such views, and many of them lived in cottages. So he literally said the following: “Tell him that if he continues like this, we can shoot him in the head in two weeks.” However, now, as Nikolai Ivanovich is sure, the “dark past” is over. “I am confident that all the positive things that have been started will develop and be maintained,” the “special representative” for the Finno-Ugric peoples concluded his Monday press conference. “Any government cannot endlessly cloud people’s heads. We must remember this."

Dmitry Azarov, a native of Kuibyshev and the former mayor of Samara, is not a stranger to the region Photo: kremlin.ru

TROUBLESOME SAMARA TOWN: PENSIONERS' MARCHES, FAILURE OF CONSTRUCTION OF THE "SPACE ARENA" AND CONFLICT WITH CHEMEZOV

Apparently, with the departure of Merkushkin in the Samara region, the Varangian experiment, which lasted two five-year plans, ended. The new acting head of the region, with whom President Putin has already met, is 47-year-old Dmitry Azarov, who is a native of Kuibyshev and former mayor of Samara. That is, whoever he is - a protégé of the Kremlin or a conductor of the will of one of its “towers” ​​- he is still not a stranger to the region. This means that the “Moscow clans”, which previously tried to rule in “Region 63”, may be squeezed out in favor of the Samara residents.

It doesn’t take long to guess where the “Moscow ones” come from in Samara. It is believed that under the first Varangian Artyakov, Chemezov’s “clan” entered the region. Artyakov’s connection with the all-powerful head of Rostec is well known from open sources: as the media write, they met back in 1990 within one of the “market projects” of the Moscow City Executive Committee. Since then, these two biographies have developed almost in parallel: for example, in the Union of Russian Mechanical Engineers created in 2007, Artyakov was elected president, and Chemezov was elected chairman of the bureau. And even after resigning from the post of governor of the Samara region, Artyakov moved not to some “special representative”, but to the position of deputy general director of the state corporation “Russian Technologies”.

Is it any wonder that Merkushkin, soon after his appointment from Mordovia to Samara, had an encounter with those whom journalists classified as “Chemezov’s people.” At the same time, Nikolai Ivanovich himself in the region was for some time considered to represent the interests of Rostec. Perhaps the governor’s administration really tried to maintain the continuity of Rostec’s course, but at some point the situation got out of control. “Chemezov wanted people to dance to his tune, but Merkushkin is a man of the old school who did not do this,” as a source told Kommersant. Their interests finally diverged on the eve of the elections to the Samara Regional Duma in September 2016, when Merkushkin allegedly “threw Chemezov’s people out of the electoral lists of United Russia and crammed in his own.”

After this, the governor remained in office for another year. However, the “conflict with Chemezov” relates more to the realm of conspiracy theories, but the scandal associated with the construction of the Samara Arena for the 2018 World Cup unfolded in plain sight. The stadium project was made in a space style (hence another name for the facility - “Cosmos Arena”). Construction started in the summer of 2014 in the presence of Putin, who laid the foundation for a capsule for posterity. Of course, if descendants do not have the Internet, they will judge the past by the bravura content of this capsule and by the faded archive pages. If the next generations are advanced, they will find in trash history a whole saga about how the general director of PSO Kazan LLC Ravil Ziganshin, invited from the Republic of Tatarstan to build a new stadium modeled on the Kazan Arena, almost lost his epoch-making contract.

The project really promised to be cosmic: an arena for 45 thousand spectators, a dome up to 60 meters high with a cutout in the center. However, it soon became clear that there was simply not enough money to complete the construction. Ziganshin did not find understanding among the Samara authorities - on the contrary, they tried to remove him from the project, replacing him with their own contractors. And only the intervention of the feds - in particular the State Duma deputy Alexandra Khinshtein and the Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation Vitaly Mutko, who considered that the local administration was deliberately underestimating expenses - saved the Kazan PSO, and with it the Cosmos Arena. The construction estimate was increased to 18.2 billion rubles, and the commissioning date was increased by the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev postponed to 2018. Nevertheless, the Samara Arena episode became another major intra-elite conflict in the region.

Merkushkin began to lose the trust of the electorate when his administration canceled additional payments to certain categories of pensioners. From now on, they were only available to unemployed veterans of labor and home front workers, as well as to those whose pension was less than 19,500 rubles. Protests began in the region, and the last of them took place in April: pensioners marched along Lenin Avenue and promised to repeat something similar at the end of September. It goes without saying that the Kremlin did not like such protest activity on the eve of the 2018 presidential elections, and with all its “towers” ​​it looked disapprovingly in the direction of Merkushkin. On September 25, the drama was resolved: the governor, elected with 91.35% of the votes, “of his own free will” resigned.

Chemezov's "clan" through the acting may try to restore its positions in the region lost under Merkushkin Photo: kremlin.ru

“THE SLOGAN “ORDER IN THE HEAD – ORDER IN THE REGION” IS BECOMING PARTICULARLY RELEVANT

The new governor of the Samara region, Azarov, will be presented to the regional administration today - for now only at the rank of acting. However, here they already know him very well: Azarov’s entire career, and before that his entire life, is connected with Samara. It is known that he was born in Kuibyshev (the Soviet name of the city until 1991) in August 1970, here he graduated from school No. 132, then a technical university and a financial and economic college. In 1995 - 1998, he already held the position of Deputy Director for Economics of the Samara Plant of Boiler and Auxiliary Equipment and Pipelines. From here - from pipes and boilers - through the Volgapromkhim production association and the position of general director of Srednevolzhskaya Gas Company LLC - he came to the Samara administration, where he immediately became the first deputy head of the city district. At the end of the 2000s, during the time of Artyakov, Dmitry Igorevich was already the Minister of Natural Resources, Forestry and Environmental Protection in the regional government. In this capacity, they say, he attracted the attention of Chemezov, who allegedly gave the go-ahead for his further ascent up the career ladder. And not only Chemezov - the then Russian President Medvedev included Azarov in his first hundred personnel reserve.

In 2010, Medvedev’s “centurion,” being a candidate from United Russia, won the first round of the city mayor’s election, gaining 66.94% of the votes. After the “era of Merkushkin” broke out in Samara in 2012, Azarov held out for another two years. His position was also undermined by the fact that the new governor carried out a reform of local government and abolished popular elections for the mayor. Against this background, the opportunity to join the Federation Council as a senator from the Samara region apparently became a salvation for Dmitry Igorevich. He remained in the Federation Council until yesterday.

Most likely, Azarov’s return to Samara will be triumphant. If it had been possible, his colleagues from the administration would probably have erected a triumphal arch for the occasion. “I already see in advance how crowds of officials are lining up to see Azarov and telling how long they have been waiting for him and how they suffered before,” Khinshtein wrote on Twitter, adding that with the advent of the interim, “the slogan of his election campaign in mayors “Order in the head means order in the region.”

The people of Samara, perhaps, really have reasons to celebrate their victory. Azarov successfully combines three political roles. On the one hand, he fits perfectly into the image of Putin’s “technocrat”: a strong business executive, still quite young, but already through fire, water and copper pipes of Samara enterprises and Kremlin corridors. On the other hand, he is a native to the region, well versed in the intricacies of local politics. And, finally, he is not alien to the so-called Chemezov clan, which through the interim may try to restore its positions in the region lost under Merkushkin. Thus, through the figure of Azarov, the lost political balance can be re-established in Samara. It is obvious that the “Varangian model” that prevailed here under Artyakov and Merkushkin did not justify itself, and now Tatarstan’s neighbor in the Volga Federal District is again returning to a governance scheme that is close to the Kazan one, when the region is ruled by local “clans” living in harmony with the federal center .

True, the very first changes that Azarov announced in yesterday’s statement to the press may affect the Cosmos Arena. The acting governor promised to conduct an audit “in all areas of activity in the region,” including the construction of a stadium for the 2018 World Cup. “Transparency of competitive procedures will ensure the selection of the best contractor to provide work, services and goods for the Samara region and for the residents of the region,” the new head of the region said the day before.

As for other Russian regions, political scientists also advise them to prepare for a series of high-profile resignations. As the media have repeatedly reported, at least 9 constituent entities of the Russian Federation are under threat of rotation of senior management personnel. In particular, the resignation of the Nizhny Novgorod governor Valeria Shantseva predicted last week.

Photo: kremlin.ru

“THE MAIN REASON IS THE STRONG UNPOPULARITY OF MR. MERKUSHKIN IN THE SAMARA REGION”

Valentin Bianchi-political scientist:

– It’s absolutely certain that there will now be a series of resignations. It can be one wave, two, three. Moreover, in addition to some autumn resignations, resignations are possible during the active phase of the presidential election campaign. Well, let's say, in January - February, to inspire the population. Who will be the next retiree? The most likely chances are for representatives of both Altai, the Murmansk region, and the Krasnoyarsk Territory. There is a list of heads of 20 regions, in half of which this will happen in the coming weeks or a month at most.

Will Merkushkin face criminal prosecution? I think that, of course, there are risks, but from a legal point of view, the authorities will try to prevent the replication of persecution stories, because the fight against corruption as a slogan, of course, is wonderful, but showing these processes during the presidential campaign is very undesirable. Therefore, I think that according to the withdrawal scenario (not without pressure), some agreements have been reached, and Merkushkina is unlikely to face responsibility. Personal, at least. Another thing is that there will still be an audit of the inheritance - after all, he received contracts, something will be replayed, some individual cases may appear, but I don’t think that this will directly concern the former head of the region. At the same time, I am absolutely sure that most governors have risks – both those who will remain and those who will leave their post in the near future. There are risks, but I think that there will not be mass criminal campaigns across several regions at once.

Natalia Zubarevich– Director of the regional program of the Independent Institute for Social Policy:

– Firstly, Merkushkin’s resignation was long expected. Secondly, the Samara region did not accept Merkushkin. There was an obvious conflict with the elites. Thirdly, I would not consider his policy successful in a much more advanced, urban region after the relatively patriarchal Mordovia. Fourthly, I don’t see any special economic successes in connection with Merkushkin in the Samara region. The rise of the auto industry after a strong fall is in no way connected with the activities of Mr. Merkushkin. And lastly: there have already been examples when “their” large companies from Mordovia were attracted under budgetary government orders, under the government contract of the Samara region. And sweets for children were purchased en masse from Mordovian factories, and something else. There was lobbying for the interests of the business of the region from which he came. Maybe even affiliated with him. But the main reason is the very strong unpopularity of Mr. Merkushkin in the Samara region.

Will what happened to Merkushkin happen to other governors? I don’t work in the Kremlin, I don’t stand there holding a candle, but the fact that the governor’s corps is being rejuvenated there is an obvious trend. I don’t think that Merkushkin faces criminal prosecution, although, as they say, never say never... After Mari El and Udmurtia, we swore off guessing anything.

“AZAROV IS CONSIDERED A PERSON CONNECTED WITH AVETISYAN’S ROSTECH”

Dmitry Zhuravlev– General Director of the Institute of Regional Problems:

– I think that there are more than 9 such “candidates”. But we cannot say this with certainty; only the president and his staff know this for sure. Because Nikolai Ivanovich is not only a major politician, a political long-liver. This is in a sense a symbol of the governor's corps. I remember him from the 90s. He changed his position only once - from the head of Mordovia to the head of the Samara region. He sat through so many that he naturally became the living embodiment of the longevity of governors. And I think that this incarnation must end. We need a generational change in the gubernatorial corps.

Who will be the next retired governor? Complex issue. It is quite possible that Mr. Shantsev is from the Nizhny Novgorod region, Valery Pavlinovich. And he will leave for the same reason - as the largest symbol of the era of economic governors. The economic governors will leave one after another. Will Merkushkin face criminal prosecution? This is definitely not for me, because you and I cannot blame Merkushkin, only the court can do that. But as far as I remember his Mordovian period, there were some questions for him.

Elena Mangileva– journalist, Samara:

– We consider Azarov to be a person associated with Rostec Vladimir Avetisyan, deputy chairman of the board of Rusnano and owner of the Volgopromgaz company. In fact, this is the person who is related to the energy sector of the Samara region. Azarov was once the general director of a company that was part of Volgopromgaz. Actually, after this post he went into politics. First he came to the mayor's office, then became the Minister of Natural Resources, and then went through the elections and became the last elected mayor of Samara. After Merkushkin arrived in the region, the new governor’s attacks on Azarov became noticeable, and this ended with the latter’s honorable exile to the Federation Council. You, the residents of Tatarstan, would not like the Varangian either, and every resident wants to see his own, not an alien. Artyakov is an incomprehensible newcomer from Moscow, then Merkushkin from Mordovia is an incomprehensible person who talked a lot and said things that became an object of ridicule in the media. The Samara region is not used to this. If we talk about the economy, this is a real failure. And all his, let’s say, deceitful ideas, for example, about buying an aircraft plant for a ruble from Deripaska, or something like that, did not lead to anything.

What to expect from Azarov? God knows. Many are disposed towards him because they were very dissatisfied with Merkushkin. He's tired of sitting on TV and performing for 5-6 hours. It was very tiring, and it was very difficult to keep up with the thoughts there. He said what he wanted, but this was specifically at odds with the deeds. And it’s a fact that we have big problems before the championship! The repair of roads along guest routes has not been completed, although the volumes are not very large. As an example of Merkushkin’s “effective” leadership of the region, I will cite the construction of a new road to Kurumoch airport parallel to the old one. The old road is very decent, and on it, 40 km from Samara and 50 from Tolyatti, Merkushkin suggested making a parking lot! To be honest, Avetisyan is also our man, he often performs in Samara with a rock band and tours here. They treat him well. Although Azarov himself, being the mayor of the city, denied that he had anything to do with Avetisyan. Even if this is so, it does not annoy anyone. There will be no struggle between clans for the resources of the region after Azarov’s arrival. Previously, we had a SOK group (a financial and industrial group with headquarters in Samara), but through the efforts of Artyakov it was simply cut down at the root. So there will be no struggle - the Samara region is now even in this regard.

Using the example of Samara, we see that the practice of appointing Varangian governors does not justify itself?

31% Regions should be governed by their own nominees

21% Varangians are the right path, but it meets resistance from local elites

6% The governor should be on the outside, but with him is the local “leader of the nobility”

17% We just see a search for a new model of regional management

https://www.site/2017-09-25/nikolay_merkushkin_ushel_ostaviv_samarskuyu_oblast_bezzachitnoy_pered_cru_i_gosdepom

Anomalous Governor

Nikolai Merkushkin left, leaving the Samara region defenseless against the CIA and the State Department

Yuri Strelets / RIA Novosti

Putin accepted the resignation of Samara Region Governor Nikolai Merkushkin at his own request. Senator from the Samara region, former head of Samara Dmitry Azarov was appointed acting governor. Merkushkin will become the president’s special representative for interaction with the Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples. the site recalls the political path and decline of the career of this extraordinary governor.

Dulles Plan Whistleblower

66-year-old Merkushkin lived a long political life. In recent years, he has appeared on the pages of the media and on social networks mainly in connection with his scandalous statements and actions.

So, in August 2016, at a meeting with Avtovaz employees in Tolyatti, who asked when their salary debts would be paid off, Merkushkin accused them of working for the US State Department.

“If you talk in this tone, your debts will never be paid off! Those who are warming you up, ask them... When, among other things, the American ambassador came, he came to warm up just these people, and then they were shown to the whole world for a month!” - Merkushkin made such a statement to Avtovaz employees.

In the same August, at a pre-election meeting with residents of the Oktyabrsky district, Merkushkin announced that the US State Department had a plan to occupy the Samara region, and therefore the CIA hacked the email of the regional government. At that meeting, Merkushkin even called the late State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova “a State Department liaison.” And Merkushkin declared opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s publications about himself to be part of the “Dulles Plan” (the mythical concept of the US struggle against the USSR).

“Why is he suddenly now, almost every day, writing about Samara, writing about me. Why? Because this chaos that Dulles has, everything is confused, everything is confused in their heads, they really want to preserve this chaos. This chaos is needed, when the time comes to throw a match, this chaos will immediately start a fire,” Merkushkin said to the amazed residents of Samara (Navalny at that time released a short video about Merkushkin; it stated that the Samara governor and his entourage have houses on Rublevskoye Highway worth millions of dollars).

After the protests on March 23, 2017, in which Samara youth took part, Merkushkin met with students. The participants of the meeting were shown the film “No to Extremism”, produced by the local TV channel “Guberniya”, where opposition rallies were equated to the Maidan and the “Arab Spring”. The authors of the film called on the viewer to prevent Maidan in the Samara region by supporting Merkushkin. A blind student openly spoke out against Merkushkin, starting to talk about bad roads and social problems. The governor responded that critics were being “sent” to him, and the student was escorted out of the meeting by the police. At the same meeting, Merkushkin said that the construction of a stadium in Samara for the 2018 FIFA World Cup was being slowed down by the US State Department, that the head of the region himself was one of the main targets of the CIA, and that pensions in Samara had increased to 70 thousand rubles (the governor’s theses were circulated on social networks by students , present at the event).

Back in July, the interlocutors of the Merkushkin site were one of the main contenders for retirement in the autumn wave. And in general, the resignation of the odious governor has been talked about for several years now.

In 2016, Merkushkin came into conflict with past administrators of domestic policy, led by the then first deputy head of administration Vyacheslav Volodin, recalls an interlocutor of a site close to the presidential administration. Then the results of the United Russia primaries did not suit the governor and his entourage. The difference between the results and the approved list of candidates attracted the attention of the central executive committee of United Russia, and the governor was forced to retreat. As a result, a rather strange campaign was going on in the elections to district councils in the Samara region: self-nominated candidates ran as “the governor’s team,” and some United Russia members demonstratively distanced themselves from Merkushkin.

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

Mordovian autocrat

Nikolai Merkushkin began his political career in Mordovia, where he lived most of his life. In 1982, he became the first secretary of the Mordovian regional committee of the Komsomol, and in 1990 - the second secretary of the Mordovian republican committee of the Communist Party of the RSFSR. In the same year, he ran for the post of Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, but lost the election to Nikolai Biryukov. In 1994, Merkushkin was elected to the State Assembly of Mordovia, in 1995 he headed it and in the fall of the same year he was elected to the post of head of Mordovia. He held this position for five consecutive terms.

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

In May 2012, President Vladimir Putin appointed Merkushkin as acting head of the Samara region. Later, in 2014, Merkushkin went to early re-election and won with a “Mordovian” result of 91% of the vote. But in 2016, after the conflict between the governor and the federal United Russia, the party received only 50.75% of the votes in the State Duma elections in the Samara region.

Grigory Sysoev / RIA Novosti

“Merkushkin, like many governors who came to power in the 90s, had a hard time with the conflict of changing political reality,” says a former federal official. — Some of the governors overcame this conflict with dignity, like the ex-head of Tatarstan Mintimer Shaimiev or the head of the Belgorod region Evgeny Savchenko. It was difficult for some, like ex-mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov. In the 90s, the governor was perceived as the rightful owner of the territory, almost as a sovereign. He built all the processes for himself, privatization was underway. In modern realities, a governor is a high-status official who heads a subject, no more and no less,” he says. According to him, Merkushkin’s result in the Samara region in his own gubernatorial elections of 92% is “his comprehensive description.”

It is worth noting Merkushkin’s conflict with ex-State Duma deputy from the Samara region Alexander Khinshtein. Khinshtein publicly criticized the governor’s entourage, for example, Samara city manager Oleg Fursov. Khinshtein accused him of spending 10 million rubles on celebrating his anniversary, which, according to official income, Fursov could not afford. Khinshtein also criticized the regional government for solving the problems of defrauded shareholders. In particular, he said that under the guise of solving such problems, “various corruption schemes” were being implemented; funds and land plots were illegally allocated. As a result, Khinshtein did not go to the State Duma from the region and now continues his career in the Russian Guard.

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

The conflict between Merkushkin and the current acting and then head of Samara, Dmitry Azarov, was of the same nature, according to the interlocutor. Azarov was elected to the post of head of Samara in 2010 with a result of 66.9%, but in the fall of 2014, on Merkushkin’s initiative, he left for the Federation Council. In the political establishment, a position in the Federation Council is generally considered exile and an honorable resignation, and in the case of Azarov this was exactly the case.

“Azarov was a strong political figure in the region before Merkushkin arrived there. And Merkushkin, as an authoritarian person, began to harshly clear the political space for himself. In Azarov, of course, he saw a competitor,” explains an interlocutor close to the Kremlin.

“An independent mayor and a visiting governor, a local and a Varangian. What else can I add? One had to go to Moscow for a while,” describes the essence of the conflict, the head of the “Political Expert Group” Konstantin Kalachev.

Samara blogger Dmitry Begun testified in detail about these conflicts in 2015. He and two other Samara bloggers were detained on charges of extortion. Begun told investigators that for several years, for 300 thousand rubles a month, he published compromising materials on Samara politicians and officials on the direct orders of Merkushkin, including Azarov and Khinshtein.

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

“When the governor is in a difficult situation, you should not attract undue attention to yourself by creating an additional negative information background,” notes Gleb Kuznetsov, a member of the board of directors of the Expert Institute for Social Research.

Merkushkin's scandalous nature really did not allow us to forget about him. Over the past year, experts openly predicted his resignation in each “wave,” that is, in the fall of 2016 and spring of 2017. However, the last straw, according to an interlocutor close to the presidential administration, was Merkushkin’s conflict with the influential state corporation Rostec, which owns shares of a number of large companies in the Samara region.

Most experts agree that the moral of Nikolai Merkushkin’s story is this: if a person looked adequate as the head of one region, it is not a fact that he will be able to successfully lead any other region. And if in one region it was possible to build a super-authoritarian model, it is not a fact that the same model can be built anywhere.

“The Samara region and Mordovia are completely different regions,” says Alexander Kynev, head of regional programs at the Information Policy Development Fund. — In principle, the history of Merkushkin’s leadership of the Samara region resembled the modified history of his leadership of Mordovia. It all started with “suffocation in the arms” of local elites, when he first demonstrated his readiness to negotiate, and then annihilated potential opponents. In the Samara region, when Merkushkin was appointed, he met with everyone, and even the oppositionists had some hopes, but then everyone was brought to a common denominator. This applies to opposition politicians, deputies at all levels, and the media. A huge number of destinies have been crippled. The Mordovian regime was personalistic, management was confined to one person, all the rest were technical advisers. But such regimes are limited by territorial principle. A personalized system has limits of effectiveness. What was possible to do in small Mordovia cannot be done in the complex and large Samara region. One person cannot control so many processes,” says Kynev. In his opinion, Merkushkin’s resignation is precisely the most clear signal about the “renewal” of the governor’s corps, in contrast to the resignations of governors of small and remote regions.

Yuri Strelets/RIA Novosti

Political strategist Oleg Matveychev notes that Mordovia is a predominantly rural region and Merkushkin was the main representative of the elite there.

“He managed to build an authoritarian system where everyone comes to bow to him. And in the Samara region there are regional elites, there are separate elites from Togliatti, Samara, Syzran. All the leading financial and industrial groups of the country are represented in the Samara region, which are headed by people who communicate with persons of status higher than Merkushkin. That’s why his approach failed, since an entire elite coalition lined up against him,” Matveychev sums up.

The head of regional programs of the EISI, ex-deputy presidential envoy in the Ural Federal District, Andrei Kolyadin, believes that Merkushkin’s main problem was that he, having lived in the Samara region for six years, was unable to fall in love with it and become one of his own in it.

“Having arrived in the Samara region, he closed himself off, surrounded himself with several people who came with him from Mordovia, and communicated only with them. For example, I lived for a year in Yekaterinburg and managed to make friends with the region and fall in love with it. After arriving in Samara, he never fell in love with the region for six years,” says Kolyadin.

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

“Probably Merkushkin would like to take a different post. The most desirable post for a retired governor is the Federation Council or a seat in the executive branch. But the executive branch has set a course for rejuvenation, and Merkushkin’s age and methods cannot be called modern. State corporations also need more modern people, so, remembering Merkushkin’s Mordovian past, they chose this position for him,” says the former federal official.

Associate Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences of RANEPA Ekaterina Shulman notes that Merkushkin’s resignation from the governor’s post without a criminal case is already good in these times, and granting him at least some kind of honorary position in the system can be considered an indicator that there is no criminal case at the moment. But this does not mean that it will not be there tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. According to Shulman, the position of the President’s special representative for interaction with the Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples was probably simply the first thing that came to mind when looking for a potential place to move Merkushkin from the governor’s chair and in some ways this is a manifestation of “hardware humor.”

Legacy: can't be changed?

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

Azarov comes from Samara. Before entering politics, he made a career in business - in 2001-2006 he was the general director of Srednevolzhskaya Gas Company LLC. In 2006-2008 he was the first deputy head of Samara Viktor Tarkhov. In 2010, Tarkhov, who first joined Rodina in the 2000s, then Sergei Mironov’s Party of Life and then his A Just Russia, served a new term. Azarov ran against Tarkhov from United Russia and won the election with 66.9% of the vote. In 2014, after a protracted confrontation with Merkushkin, Azarov, as already mentioned, was “evacuated” to the Federation Council.

The former head of the internal policy department of the presidential administration, head of the Civil Society Development Fund, Konstantin Kostin, evaluates Azarov’s appointment positively.

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

Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA Novosti

Another interlocutor of the publication, close to the administration, is less friendly towards the new governor and says that the politician from Azarov is strong, he catches all signals and carries out them clearly, but whether he can cope with the economic part of his work is a big question.

Presidential elections will take place in March 2018. It is expected that the current head of state, Vladimir Putin, will take part in them. It is obvious that the result of the main candidate and the course of the campaign in the Samara region will be the first test for the acting governor Dmitry Azarov, who will be elected to his post on a single voting day in the fall of 2018.

As mentioned above, Merkushkin received 91% of the votes in the elections in the Samara region in 2014, which is certainly an anomalous result, more typical for national republics. Now the new government faces a dilemma: should it pursue Merkushkin’s percentage or organize the electoral process more democratically?

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

The head of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation, Mikhail Vinogradov, has already joked on his Facebook that the new regional government now faces the dilemma “you can’t leave it to change.”

“Merkushkin received an extremely high result in the gubernatorial elections, which clearly did not correspond to his real popularity. Now the region is in a dual situation. On the one hand, a large number of voters live in the Samara region, and the center needs votes for power in order to quantitatively compensate for the voting results in large cities, for example, in Moscow, where votes for power are worse. Merkushkin’s “electoral machine” was a serious asset for the center, and now it is unclear whether it can function without him and, most importantly, whether it is necessary to maintain the caricature-high results in its current form or, for the purity of the elections, to demand more realistic figures for the Samara region, where there are protest sentiments in Samara or Togliatti,” concludes Vinogradov.

After numerous scandals, the Kremlin decided to “remove” the Samara governor Nikolai Merkushkin.