The law is written to senators

State Duma deputy Konstantin Shirshov doubted the biography of Senator Sergei Pugachev.

Konstantin Shirshov recently sent requests to the heads of law enforcement agencies and the Chairman of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov, asking them to check the facts that have become known regarding the senator from the Republic of Tyva Sergei Pugachev. According to Shirshov, the senator, when applying for a civil service job, used forged documents - diplomas and work records, and also hid the fact that he had been in the famous “Kresty” for about a year awaiting the completion of a criminal case brought against him under the article “fraud.”

From Shirshov’s request it follows that on May 26, 1986, the Vasileostrovsky District Court of Leningrad sentenced citizen S.V. Pugachev to three years of suspended imprisonment with confiscation of property and mandatory labor for fraud.

And from a letter addressed by Konstantin Shirshov to Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, you can glean facts that complement this story: “Since 1984, he was wanted by the police for fraud, in addition, until June 26, 1988, Pugachev S.V. served his sentence at construction sites in the Yaroslavl region.”

Pugachev’s crime, by the way, was very “Soviet.” In those days, as you know, there was a terrible shortage of cars. According to the decision of the judge of the Vasileostrovsky court Yu. A. Rumyantsev, which fell into the hands of the deputy, Pugachev borrowed 5,500 rubles from his friend and colleague Egorov, promising to buy a new car. According to Pugachev, his father had the opportunity to purchase the car. Egorov did not see either the car or the cash. For this, the current senator, in addition to serving a year in the St. Petersburg “Kresty”, worked for two more years “in chemistry” in the Yaroslavl region.

It is clear that the senator’s criminal record is long-standing and expunged. Moreover, in 2000, that is, 14 years later, when Pugachev became famous and rich, the Presidium of the St. Petersburg City Court overturned the verdict of the district court and terminated the criminal case against him for lack of evidence. But in the autobiography of Sergei Pugachev, presented to the Federation Council, there is not a word about all this. It turns out that when elected to the upper house of parliament, he hid this information about his biography . But the senator writes that from 1983 to 1991 he worked at the Stroybank of the USSR as a courier, economist, and deputy head of a department. However, in another autobiography, presented by Konstantin Shirshov, for some reason Pugachev names a different period of work and a different bank - 1985–1990, Promstroibank of the USSR. And in the work book submitted to the Federation Council (a duplicate issued by the personnel department of the International Industrial Bank owned by the senator), the period of work from 1983 to 1991 is indicated as “work in the Krasnogvardeisky branch of Stroybank.”

But according to the documents Shirshov has, in 1983 Pugachev worked as a freight forwarder at the Pribaltiyskaya Hotel, where he met the same Yegorov.
The senator also approached the issue of obtaining his higher education “creatively.” In some sources, Pugachev indicates the Ufa Oil Institute, in others - Leningrad State University, and most often a certain University of Knowledge Methodology appears.

In his autobiography submitted to the Federation Council, Pugachev indicates that in 1980–1985 he studied at the Zhdanov Leningrad State University (the official information of the Federation Council states that he graduated from it) and the University of Knowledge Methodology (1990–1994). However, the court verdict from 1986 states that Pugachev has a secondary education. A.i.o. Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs of St. Petersburg University I. A. Dementyev, in a letter No. 3/3-15-210, confirmed that “a diploma in the name of S. V. Pugachev was not issued in 1985.” The educational institution called the University of Knowledge Methodology did not have a license to conduct educational activities and was liquidated in 1992 (Pugachev’s diploma is dated 1994). By the way, perhaps a diploma of higher education was useful to the senator in the Higher Attestation Commission when awarding the academic degrees of candidate and doctor of technical sciences. Such “actions of Pugachev qualify as complicity in the production of false documents,” states deputy Konstantin Shirshov.

If so, the senator will still have to give clear explanations. Arkhangelsk Mayor Alexander Donskoy was tried for using a false diploma. On December 4, 2006, the prosecutor's office of the Arkhangelsk region opened a criminal case against him under Part 3 of Art. 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (use of a deliberately forged document - a diploma of higher education). This trial cost Donskoy a year in a pre-trial detention center, and ultimately, the mayor’s seat. Why should Senator Pugachev be untouchable?
It is significant that Deputy Shirshov started the proceedings immediately after President Dmitry Medvedev signed changes to the procedure for forming the new Federation Council. “This is not just a procedural innovation, this is a fundamentally new approach to the formation of the Federation Council,” Medvedev said recently at a meeting with senators. According to the president, the goal of the new mechanism is to ensure constant and more effective contacts of Federation Council members with their regions. “Now, after the relevant law comes into force, the upper house will be represented by people well known in their regions, who have gone through the crucible of public elections and who know all aspects of regional politics,” the president said.

Meanwhile, observers noticed that not all senators liked the innovations initiated by the first person of the country; a certain murmur was noted in the ranks of some of them. Few, such as the deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Federation Affairs and Regional Policy Viktor Leonov, publicly and uncompromisingly supported the head of state. “Combining the mandate of a member of the Federation Council and the mandate of a member of the legislative bodies of the subject will increase the responsibility of senators to the population,” Leonov said.

According to experts, the steps taken by Deputy Shirshov should alert some politicians with “opaque” biographies and force them to explain where the truth is.