Nikolai Anisimov revealed the conspiracy of the Evenkia authorities

exposure
Yesterday, the scandal surrounding the election of the former head of the Yukos-Moscow company Vasily Shakhnovsky as Evenkia's representative in the Federation Council received an unexpected continuation. Nikolai Anisimov, who temporarily gave up his seat in the Federation Council to Mr. Shakhnovsky and maintained stubborn silence during the scandal, gave a press conference in the building of the Federation Council. He stated that the Evenkia authorities put pressure on him, demanding his resignation, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky was to take his place. Evenkia authorities called these claims unsubstantiated.
Nikolai Anisimov was recalled from his post as representative of the Suglan (parliament) of Evenkia in the Northern Fleet on October 11 due to deteriorating health. On October 27, Vasily Shakhnovsky, accused of tax evasion on an especially large scale, was elected a member of the Federation Council from Suglan. On November 1, Suglan’s decision was challenged by the department of the Prosecutor General’s Office for the Siberian Federal District (SFO), citing a complaint from Senator Anisimov. On November 6, the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court upheld this protest, overturning both decisions of the district parliament.
Mr. Anisimov remained silent for a long time. In his reception, in response to all attempts to get a comment, they stated that the member of the Federation Council was sick and it was impossible to contact him. Yesterday the senator explained that at that time he was undergoing hospital treatment.
- But, excuse me, we were talking at that time in the Federation Council! — one of the journalists was surprised.
“Don’t interfere,” Mr. Anisimov interrupted. “First, everything in order.”
The order went like this. At the end of August, Mr. Anisimov was called to Moscow by the district governor Boris Zolotarev and invited him to resign as a member of the Federation Council. “In return, he promised the position of deputy governor in the Moscow representative office for one to one and a half years,” said Mr. Anisimov. “I asked to be given time to think about it.” Having thought it all over, Mr. Anisimov refused to leave the Federation Council, but the governor continued to insist and invited him to come to the YUKOS office to meet with “the person who is responsible for ideology in the company.”
At the end of September, the speaker of the Suglan, Anatoly Amosov, informed Mr. Anisimov that the issue had already been resolved at the top, and the seat of a member of the Federation Council was intended for the head of Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The name of Vasily Shakhnovsky, according to Mr. Anisimov, was not mentioned then and only surfaced on the day of his election. At the same time, according to the senator, threats began to be made against him and his family members, and rumors began to spread in Evenkia that in exchange for leaving the Federation Council, he had been purchased an apartment in Moscow and given a stipend of $1 million.
The fact that so much time passed between his recall from the Federation Council and the sending of the protest to the Prosecutor General's Office was explained by the senator as due to his illness. In addition, he expected that the deputies would come to their senses: “But, apparently, there were serious reasons. Just as Berezovsky barks from London, so some of our comrades tried to bark from the capital of Evenkia.” The idea of complaining to the prosecutor and senator was suggested by the representative of the Evenkia administration in the Federation Council, Yuri Sharandin. According to rumors, it was he who brought documents for Mr. Shakhnovsky to the Northern Fleet. Mr. Anisimov assured Kommersant that he did not communicate with representatives of law enforcement agencies and there was no pressure on him in this matter.
“There is no point in commenting on the senator’s scandalous speeches,” Governor Zolotarev said yesterday. “The best answer would be an open letter adopted at the conference of district teachers.” “It is obvious to us that you are playing a political game. Withdraw your statement from the Prosecutor General’s Office. You must have the courage to admit your own mistakes,” says the letter published yesterday in the district newspaper. Speaker Amosov agrees with the governor: “After Anisimov’s statement, I talked with deputies. To summarize their opinion, we can say: Anisimov’s words are completely unsubstantiated, and his statement is due to the fear of losing his place in Moscow.”
However, the scandal may seriously continue, especially since the department of the Prosecutor General’s Office for the Siberian Federal District continues to investigate the circumstances under which Suglan decided to recall his representative. Investigators asked Governor Zolotarev, who was recently summoned to the prosecutor's office, whether pressure had been put on Mr. Anisimov. The Federation Council member himself said yesterday that after his resignation, “some deputies may have improved their well-being,” and the investigation is also looking into this issue.
ALLA Kommersant-Barakhova

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 218 dated November 28, 2003, p. 4

Authors:

Alla Barakhova

Themes:

The oligarch was being trained to become a senator