From Vanya to Vali

Investigators identify new victims and find old connections

After the tragic death of 6-year-old Ivan Zavyalov in St. Petersburg, the Prosecutor General's Office threatened to check how snow and ice were removed from roofs in all Russian cities. In the northern capital, they did not wait for the inspectors: already on the day of the boy's funeral, 16 ...

After the tragic death of 6-year-old Ivan Zavyalov in St. Petersburg, the Prosecutor General's Office threatened to check how snow and ice were removed from roofs in all Russian cities. In the northern capital, they did not wait for the inspectors: already on the day of the boy’s funeral, January 16, public utilities climbed even those houses where they had not been seen even once since the beginning of winter.

The St. Petersburg prosecutor's office, at the request of the top, transferred all criminal cases involving victims of poor-quality snow and ice removal to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for further investigation. She also instructed the district prosecutors to strictly monitor every fact of getting injured on ice and from falling icicles.

Officials do not get tired of commenting on the death of a child. Standard: “we are not to blame” and “we are doing our best.”

“There is no drama, no tragedy in the city,” Governor Valentina Matviyenko said on January 17. - The trouble happened - it's really a tragedy. But I mean, from the point of view of snow removal, no one can say that you can’t walk through the city or you can’t drive through the city, as they try to make it.

In the same speech, the mayor demonstrated a penchant for exaggeration. She lamented that "there are more than 100 thousand residential buildings in St. Petersburg", although - according to the city housing committee - only 22 thousand. Thus, Valentina Ivanovna almost equated St. Petersburg with Moscow, where there are 114 thousand buildings, but the population is twice the number of residents of the Northern capital. But I forgot to note: there are ten times more snowplows and workers in Moscow than in St. Petersburg.

Together with the officials of the Kirovsky district, where a six-year-old boy lived and died, the governor took up arms against Zhilkomservis No. 2 and its contractors, almost declaring them guilty until the end of the investigation.

“This ZhKS, having forged signatures, seized 500 houses under its control, took away the powers from the state organization,” Matviyenko spoke out as a whistleblower. “Since the spring of 2010, the district administration has been taking measures by contacting the prosecutor's office to resolve the situation, and even the personal intervention of the governor was required for the prosecutor's office to investigate the dishonesty of this company. Now this FSW will receive in full, although I remind you that they have been trying to influence him for six months already.

Meanwhile, Valentina Ivanovna herself does not interfere with reminding that officials have been “friends” with Zhilkomservis No. 2 and its director Vadim Shirokov for six years. From 2005 to 2009, only firms founded by Shirokov and his wife won tenders from the administration of the Kirovsky District: at least 8 contracts were concluded with them. And in 2009, when Vadim Shirokov registered OJSC Zhilkomservis No. 2, the district authorities participated, if not contributed (this will be clarified by the investigation), in the transfer of apartments to him. Last winter, the budget paid an additional 10 million rubles to Zhilkomservis No. 2 for clearing snow and ice, this winter - 8 million rubles, not counting monthly payments.

To date, investigators have also learned that the contractors chosen by Zhilkomservis No. 2 for roof work - Alfa-Stroy-7 LLC - are not strangers to officials. From 2007 to 2010, this company completed works worth 21.5 million rubles on orders from the district administration. But there was no one to clean the roof of the five-story building on Stachek Avenue ...

But, as Novaya Gazeta was told in the Investigation Department under the Prosecutor's Office of St. Petersburg, the investigation into the death of the child "will be carried out in full." From polyclinic No. 21, where the dying boy was brought, his medical record was confiscated. Experts intend to check the correctness of first aid: did the doctors make mistakes? Although one of the eyewitnesses of this tragedy said: “The ice floe drove the child into the ground like a nail” ...

PS Grandmother Vanya Zavyalova, who buried her only grandson, refused all the money offered to her by the authorities and public utilities.