The bandits retreated

Special control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs over the St. Petersburg police was lifted even “without a control check”

The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Boris Gryzlov, arrived yesterday on a working visit to St. Petersburg and held another operational meeting with the police chiefs of the North-Western District. Unlike previous similar events, he did not scold the St. Petersburg law enforcement officers, but, on the contrary, suddenly announced that on July 14 he ordered the removal of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region from special control by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, which the main commander had been under for about five years. You don’t need to be an attentive observer to notice that St. Petersburg lost its status as a “super-criminal” city immediately after the government changed in the city. Now it is no longer a criminal capital, but a gathering place for the world's political elite, the prosperity of science and the fine arts, as well as an island of political stability.

St. Petersburg gained fame as the most dangerous city in the country in the late 90s, when influential businessmen and politicians were “shot” here. Vice-governor Mikhail Manevich, banker and public figure Dmitry Filippov, gasoline king Pavel Kapysh, and local parliament member Viktor Novoselov fell at the hands of killers. The most notorious murder was the shooting of State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova. Two years ago, Boris Gryzlov, who arrived in St. Petersburg, made a number of loud statements that a significant part of the city’s economy is controlled by organized crime.

“The gangster clans of St. Petersburg,” the minister said in the summer of 2001, “are “cutting coupons” from the activities of four key Russian ports on the Baltic: St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Arkhangelsk and Murmansk.” And the “Tambov” ones, according to the minister, received their income from about a hundred fuel and energy enterprises (mainly trade in petroleum products), light, food, processing industries, timber exports and imports of alcohol and tobacco. However, two years before those statements, in 1999, another head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Sergei Stepashin, also spoke about the need to “clean up” the ports and industry of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region.

By the way, for a number of years the police have directly said that the Tambov gang has direct access to the offices of Smolny. But people in uniform could not do anything about it, and that must be why the head of the St. Petersburg police department changed on average once every one and a half to two years. In May 2002, the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the creation of an operational investigative group for the decriminalization of St. Petersburg. Then an operational headquarters was created to combat criminal groups, as well as “local” working groups, which were assigned specific tasks. Judging by the scolding that the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs gave to the police of St. Petersburg, the region and the North-Western District in April 2003, the desired goals were not achieved. Therefore, this spring, a month and a half before the celebration of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg, the head of the North-Western district department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Boris Uemlyanin, and the heads of the district police departments of St. Petersburg and the city of Vyborg in the Leningrad region lost their posts overnight. An internal audit has begun against other bosses. When their resignation was announced, Boris Gryzlov said that the rampant street crime in St. Petersburg was alarming, and the patrol service was working poorly.

But, as it turned out yesterday, the situation magically changed. As Mr. Gryzlov said, the special control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs over the Main Internal Affairs Directorate of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region has been lifted, and even “without a control check.” He stated that “the best test was the results of the work of law enforcement agencies during the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg, which were noted by the president and the public.” According to the minister, international summits became the impetus for “huge work on decriminalization of the North-West.” And now “many crimes have been solved, and there has been a serious decline in the crime rate in the region.” The number of criminal acts in the Northwestern District decreased by 13% in the first half of the year, and this is the best figure in the country, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs assured. In the spirit of the new fashion, there is also a purge of ranks - on Tuesday in St. Petersburg, a police captain and lieutenant were detained, who, according to the minister, are “suspected of involvement in organized criminal communities.” Now, according to Mr. Gryzlov, it is necessary to devote all efforts to combating the theft of timber, metals, biological resources, the illegal withdrawal of capital from the country and the prevention of terrorist attacks.

However, it is much more plausible that the reason for the removal of the criminal label from St. Petersburg was not so much the amazing results of the summits (for the protection of which, by the way, intelligence officers from all over the country were mobilized, and not only St. Petersburg police officers), but rather the departure of Vladimir Yakovlev from Smolny. In recent years, the title of “criminal capital” has been a good PR move to fight the ex-governor. And when the Kremlin candidate became the favorite in the election race, this was no longer necessary. In addition, all of Mr. Gryzlov’s latest statements fit well into the outline of the beginning Duma election campaign of United Russia, and yesterday’s action is no exception.

Victor MATVEEV, St. Petersburg