Humanitarian divorce

At the Russian State Humanitarian University, a scandal has again risen. A temporary lull after a hasty election of a new rector (instead of forced to save the university to resign Leonid Nevzlin) was violated on January 20 at a meeting of the RETR of the RSUSU. “Polit.ru” suggested that after the election by the rector V.V. Minaeva at the university will begin to occur significant changes. Among others, fears were associated with the policy of the Board of Trustees, created to control the distribution of finance and raising funds and consisting of Yukos shareholders Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Leonid Nevzlin, representative of the Open Russia ROO Alexander Osovtsov and the founder and president of the Russian State University Yuri Afanasyev. The fate of $ 100 million, which was supposed to be allocated to the RSU for 10 years, was also interesting. After the departure of Nevzlin from the post of rector Yukos, he said that he was not going to turn his programs at the university. And on the eve of the next money tranche ($ 5 million), at a meeting of the rector, the question is raised about reducing the powers of the current financial director of the Russian State Humanitarian University Alexander Khachaturov, appointed to this post, not without the influence of Yukos to establish control over financial flows. The relevant powers were assigned to him at the general university conference by making amendments to the charter of the RSUSU. The press secretary of the Russian State University Irakli Bolkwadze said that Khachaturov, in addition to managing the “Yukosov” means itself, concentrated in his hands almost all financial property and legal leadership of the university, most documents underwent under his signature were initially signed by the rector. It is difficult to verify how much this corresponds to the current version of the charter, as well as reality.

It is stated that the new head of the university V. Minaev has no desire to be responsible for the actions of the person appointed by his predecessor. In addition to revising the powers of the financial director, the status of the Board of Trustees of the RSUSU, which seems to “affect the university too global”, was discussed.

Today morning newspapers came out under loud headlines that the RSU was refusing Yukos's money. The press service of the Russian State University hastened to refute such loud statements: “The university needs to bring the charter of the RSUSU in accordance with the current legislation and interests of the university in the shortest possible time, having revised the provisions governing the activities of the Board of Trustees and the financial director of the RSU, and if after that Yukos wants to leave, let it leave.” There are no specific violations of the legislation in the current charter, however, however, is not given. At the same time, the question of the search for alternative sources of financing of the university was raised - whether it will increase the cost of training, renting a number of more premises for rent or a new sponsor, will be decided soon.

The reasons for such a sharp turn in relations with the trusteeship of the trustees are called pressure from the state in the person of the Ministry of Education. A large Chinesist and one of the candidates for the rector of the Russian State Humanitarian University, Professor Ilya Smirnov in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper said that “the Ministry of Education presses: supposedly if he does not give up money, the ministry would not approve him as the rector.” The RSUSU actively refutes this information, stating that the delay in Minaev’s approval is associated with the New Year holidays and illness of Vladimir Filippov.

However, in all this problem there is a third party: the actual board and Yukos. They have a very definite look for these “movements” at the RSUSU. The coordinator of the Open Russia programs, Alexander Osovtsov, told Polit.ru that Minaev is really trying to get rid of the financial director and Yukos money and that the Ministry of Education really presses him. In his opinion, the state does not want to have a precedent for creating a truly transparent structure, and many university employees are more familiar to work in a bureaucratic, financially venerable structure, which is easily corruption. In addition, people are led by fear of the state-just the university does not want to be somehow connected with the disgraced company. Due to the constant opposition of Yukos, it was not possible to make a little at the university. But understanding is a lot. In particular, to realize the degree of impenetrability of the budget and the inefficiency of financial management.

In this regard, the Board of Trustees, when continuing such a development of events, intends to curtail its activities. According to Mr. Osovtsov, he is going to leave the Board of Trustees, Leonid Nevzlin is also jointly in this decision. In this situation, only Mikhail Khodorkovsky will remain in the board of trustees, who now, in connection with the arrest, cannot fulfill his functions in full, and Yuri Afanasyev (by the way, we still do not know his opinions about what is happening). The circle is closed, and most likely there will be no more money. Although Osovtsev does not exclude the possibility that if Yukos wants to continue to finance the university, the company can gather a new board of trustees. Unfortunately, the chances of such an outcome are small.

One way or another, the decision on the main issues regarding the further fate of the Union of the Russian State University of Humanitarian University and the disgraced oil company Yukos will be issued in the near future at a meeting of the Academic Council of the Russian State Humanitarian University (January 23) and the general university conference (January 28).