Today in the Tula House of Officers there will be a farewell ceremony for the former governor and member

Today at the Tula House of Officers there will be a farewell ceremony for the former governor and member of the presidential council Nikolai Sevryugin, who headed the region from October 1991 to March 1997. He was one of the first regional leaders to receive his post for timely loyalty to democracy, and one of the first democrats caught in corruption.
The first post-Soviet leader of the Tula region died on Tuesday evening at the age of 64 in a regular city hospital. The diagnosis is heart failure. Vasily Starodubtsev, in the past his irreconcilable opponent, signed a restrained obituary, which states that the deceased “went through the school of party and Soviet work” and that his “great career” was inextricably linked with the Tula region. Nikolai Sevryugin began his career after graduating from the Ryazan Agricultural Institute as a farm manager. Quite soon, he became the first secretary of the Odoevsky district party committee, then the head of the regional agricultural administration, but after that the first secretary of the regional party committee, Ivan Yunak, demoted him to chairman of the Leninsky district executive committee. Oddly enough, it was the demotion that helped his career take off again. After the defeat of the Emergency Committee, Tula democrats nominated Mr. Sevryugin to the leadership as a victim of the Soviet regime, and Boris Yeltsin signed a decree appointing him governor.
As a member of the Presidential Council, Mr. Sevryugin took the toughest position on the Chechen war, demanding that it be waged until complete victory over the separatists, regardless of losses. In the Tula region, the last years of Nikolai Sevryugin's reign were marked by corruption scandals. Two of his deputies and several regional administration officials were put in the dock, and the governor’s rating dropped to almost zero. In March 1997, he suffered a crushing defeat from Vasily Starodubtsev, and on June 5 of the same year he was arrested and accused of taking a bribe. According to the investigation, in the last days of his governorship, Mr. Sevryugin signed a mutual settlement agreement that was beneficial for the Moscow Rostrabank and received $100 thousand for his signature.
In 1998, the ex-governor, together with his son Andrei (he was accused of mediation in the transfer of a bribe) and the alleged bribe-giver, bank representative Valery Fedorchenko, appeared before the regional court. At the trial, witness testimony, audio recordings and video materials were presented confirming the transfer of money. However, judge Evgeny Nekrasov considered the evidence insufficient and, at the request of the lawyers, sent the case for additional investigation. As a result, the Tula prosecutor's office also charged the ex-governor with theft of official property.
After this, the process was postponed more than once. Also in 1998, Nikolai Sevryugin was hospitalized in a regional hospital. According to the doctors' conclusion, he needed a pacemaker implanted, otherwise the defendant, suffering from angina pectoris, coronary heart disease and other diseases, would not be able to further participate in the trial. The Supreme Court of Russia granted the lawyers' request to release the ex-governor on his own recognizance for health reasons. And soon an amnesty arrived, according to which Nikolai Sevryugin was released from criminal liability as an order bearer.
During his stay in the pre-trial detention center, the ex-governor was engaged in poetry. Judging by Mr. Sevryugin’s poems, in conclusion he was most concerned about the problems of the village: “Don’t disappear, my village, / Don’t leave the fields as a people, / Lead a full round dance / And revive how everything was.”
The former head of the region never received a verdict in the case in which he was initially the main accused. The trial is still not over; the governor's son Andrei Sevryugin and banker Fedorchenko remain defendants.
VLADIMIR J-FETISOV, Tula

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 53 dated March 28, 2002, p. 9

Themes:

Obituaries

The governor died without a verdict