Recommendation points
The last pre-New Year’s week was marked by a number of large-scale and contrasting events. Among them are accidents on the roads and in residential buildings, the commissioning of a number of metro facilities. Not without scandals: arrests and summons for interrogation of ex-officials involved in billion-dollar fraud with state property, the loud dismissal of the head of the State Construction Committee. And for law-abiding entrepreneurs, the rules for the lease and redemption of state and municipal property were relaxed..
On Thursday, December 27, a larger-scale incident occurred on the M5 highway Chelyabinsk – Moscow. Heavy snowfall and blizzard paralyzed traffic on this route for 17 hours. A ten-kilometer congestion formed on the section from 1573 to 1586 km of the road in the area of the Sim pass, between the cities of Ust-Katav and Asha, Chelyabinsk region.
The amount of precipitation recorded that day was a record 8.2 mm per hour. Heavy snowfall with high humidity of 92% and strong winds, the speed of which reached 22 m / s, limited visibility to 3 meters.
By the forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Bashkiria and the Chelyabinsk region, mobile heating and power points were deployed in the congestion area. In addition, drivers could warm up and have a snack in the cafes of 11 service stations and 2 gas stations located along the highway. Road services cleared the driveway using snow plows.
Traffic blocking by snow drifts occurs on federal highways every year. Due to unfavorable weather conditions, 11 large-scale emergencies have occurred on federal roads since 2009.
In St. Petersburg, 2 major traffic jams were recorded during the week, including a tram. So, on Monday, at the corner of Kuibyshev Street and Kronverksky Avenue, colliding cars blocked the movement of trams, the drivers of which had to wait several hours to continue driving. On Thursday, 2 accidents occurred, which created a serious obstacle to traffic on the Obvodny Canal embankment and caused a large congestion of cars in a traffic jam.
And if the congestions did without casualties, the real tragedies were the collapse of houses that occurred this week in Tyumen and the Astrakhan region. On Tuesday, December 25, in Tyumen, a gas cylinder exploded in a multi-storey residential building on Zapadno-Sibirskaya Street, followed by the collapse of the seventh and eighth floors of the building..
As a result, 2 people died, 1 received severe burns. According to the preliminary version, the explosion took place on the seventh floor during unauthorized repairs. The victims were construction crew workers.
The results of dismantling the rubble showed that there were no more dead or injured. The house has not yet been put into operation, and the work, presumably, on the installation of stretch ceilings, was organized by the future new settlers of the apartment on the seventh floor.
The next day, in the Astrakhan region, the village of Liman, as a result of the explosion of a gas cylinder, part of a two-storey apartment building of a hostel collapsed. In addition, a fire broke out, which was quickly, however, liquidated by the regional department of the Ministry of Emergencies. As a result of the collapse, 5 people were injured, 2 of them received burns, no deaths.
One of the victims, a woman born in 1938, was found and rescued from the rubble by rescuers. The most serious injuries were received by 3 residents of the dorm room, in which a gas cylinder exploded. According to the investigation, the balloon was carried into the hostel by the tenant of this room, as a result of the explosion he received serious injuries, like his 2 daughters, who were in the same place..
To rescue people and dismantle debris, 265 personnel from various services were involved, most of them from the Ministry of Emergencies of the Russian Federation, and 46 pieces of equipment. The work was completed in 5 hours, during which 470 cubic meters of debris and construction waste were removed.
On December 27, the head of the regional government, Konstantin Markelov, held a meeting with the involvement of social services, as a result of which a decision was made on additional compensation for each of the 16 affected families at 10 thousand rubles, in addition to mandatory payments. The decision to return the residents of the surviving part of the hostel has not yet been made, the building is being examined for its safety.
And in the Rostov region on December 24, the management of a construction company and the foreman were charged with violating safety rules after the collapse of a house in Taganrog on December 13. Under the rubble of a house under construction, then 5 builders died, and another 14 were injured.
In the light of these events, the concern of the residents of a high-rise building in St. Petersburg on Korablestroiteley Street becomes understandable. On December 29, a crack appeared at the thirteenth floor, which caused part of the wall to retreat. Emergency services are preparing a four-ton emergency fragment for disassembly, and the Ministry of Emergency Situations assures the residents that this situation is not dangerous.
New metro stations
However, life, despite the tragedies, goes on as usual. The week was marked by the commissioning of 3 metro stations, one of which is in Moscow, the rest – in St. Petersburg.
On December 28, the grand opening of the Moscow metro Pyatnitskoe Shosse took place. Sergei Sobyanin took part in the event. The construction of the station was carried out in order to maximize the unloading of the roads passing through Mitino to the station “Tushinskaya” from the suburbs and Zelenograd. In addition, with the launch of the station, the transport support of Mitino has been significantly improved. Now the Moscow metro has 188 stations, and next year it is planned to commission 7 more metro stations.
On the same day, two new stations of the fifth metro line in St. Petersburg – Mezhdunarodnaya and Bukharestskaya – were opened. Above-ground lobbies of both stations are structurally combined with shopping malls. The stations belong to the Frunzensky radius. The facilities were long-term construction, since the work was frozen back in the nineties due to lack of funding, and resumed in 2005.
With the commissioning of the stations, the transport support of the Kupchino region can be considered significantly improved. In addition to the construction of new ones, the existing metro stations are being repaired. Thus, the reconstruction of the entrance hall of the station “Nevsky Prospect-2”, which was carried out for almost a year, has been completed..
Corruption and theft
While some officials were creating, others were destroying, but nevertheless, how much rope does not twist … So, in Moscow – another arrest in the high-profile case of theft of state property. Anatoly Shesteryuk, the former head of the Moscow Federal Property Management Agency, was detained on December 25 as a result of a joint operation by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB. Ex-official charged with embezzlement of property worth 10 billion rubles.
This is another arrest in a chain of detentions of the heads of several companies, banking institutions and even one court. Thus, the scheme involved officials of the Federal Property Management Agency in Moscow, the Moskovsky Capital Bank, the GRAN and Project companies, and a private arbitration court. The criminal scheme of embezzlement of state property consisted in the fact that fraudsters took out a loan secured by real estate in state ownership.
The loans, of course, were not returned, and the pledged property became the property of the bank on the basis of fictitious court decisions. Among these objects are named, including gas stations and cultural monuments. One of the suspects has not yet been caught and is on the wanted list.
The case of another criminal group that plunders state property is only gaining momentum. Former Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Anatoly Serdyukov, who is a witness in the case of fraud with the property of the Ministry of Defense, arrived for interrogation at the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation on Friday. According to some media reports, Serdyukov flew to Moscow from France.
The witness in the high-profile case drove up to the building of the Investigative Committee in a Mercedes car, and 12 FSO guards accompanied him. Genrikh Padva, Serdyukov’s lawyer, did not come, citing his health condition. The interrogation lasted 1 hour, but did not give any results: the ex-minister did not answer the questions posed, citing the absence of a lawyer.
The interrogation was postponed to January 11, 2013. Rumors that Anatoly Serdyukov is trying to obtain citizenship in Latvia were officially denied by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Latvian side. Vladimir Markin, a representative of the Investigative Committee, said that the evidence base required for the interrogation of Serdyukov had been collected for a long time.
The former official has not yet been charged with any charges, unlike his former subordinates and friends, whose freedom of movement is limited by law enforcement officers: the ex-head of the property department of the Ministry of Defense is under house arrest, Ekaterina Smetanova (after interrogation, a summons to Serdyukov was handed over), Maxim Zakutailo and Alexander Yelkin is in jail.
There is no limit to the greed of dishonest officials, even when freedom and security are at stake. And the struggle for tidbits that give unlimited opportunities continued this week as well. On December 25, the information about the impending resignation of the head of the State Construction Committee, spread the day before by the State Duma deputy from United Russia, Alexander Khinshtein, was confirmed..
So, the head of the State Construction Committee, Deputy Minister of Regional Development Vladimir Kogan, was dismissed by the decision of Dmitry Medvedev. Together with the official, 5 of his deputies left their posts. The head of the Ministry of Regional Development Igor Slyunyaev, the day after the resignation of Vladimir Kogan, at a meeting in the ministry, made a round of the Gosstroy on the quality of performing discipline in terms of preparing draft regulations and work on citizens’ appeals.
A common version of the reason for Kogan’s departure is his conflict with Slyunyaev, who prepares the department for his Kostroma team and pulls the key powers of the Gosstroy in terms of technical supervision and preparation of bills to the Ministry of Regional Development.
The version of Igor Slyunyaev’s dissatisfaction with Kogan’s friendship with Vladimir Putin also has a right to exist. At one time, the President of the Russian Federation had assets in a bank headed by Kogan. In addition, many associate Putin’s dismissal of the previous Minister of Regional Development, Oleg Govorun, with the latter’s conflict with Kogan..
Bills
While those in power are dividing the country, what is left for medium-sized businesses? Just wait for favors from the state. And so, the government went to meet the conscientious taxpayers who rent premises for state and municipal facilities.
On December 27, in general, a draft amendment to a number of federal laws regarding the lease and redemption of objects of state and municipal property by business entities was approved.
The amendments will be submitted to the State Duma for consideration. The aforementioned bill provides for a significant softening of the conditions for tenants to buy out real estate that is in state or municipal ownership..
So, the limit on the size of the area of the repurchased object is canceled, and the minimum installment plan for the payment of the buyback cost will be 3 years, and this period will be extended for the duration of litigation if the buyer does not agree with the assessment.
For those entrepreneurs who have rented premises for 5 years, the right to apply for the purchase of the object under the notification procedure is given. In addition, the bill expands the list of types of objects that support the activities of entrepreneurs, in particular, it also includes objects used in the field of innovation..
Also, the document provides for the extension of benefits previously defined only for social enterprises, and those that are engaged in priority areas..
Can you provide more information about the context of the state of emergency, arrests, dismissals, and the introduction of new metro stations? How do these events relate to each other? What impact will they have on the upcoming holidays?