| Vladivostok received the status of capital After several years of fierce debate, deputies of the regional parliament yesterday finally awarded Vladivostok the status of the capital of the Primorsky Territory. On March 30, at a meeting of the legislative assembly of the Primorsky Territory, the bill “On the status of the city of Vladivostok - the administrative center of the Primorsky Territory” was adopted in the second and third readings. The majority of parliamentarians (21 out of 31 present) voted for the adoption of the bill, which deputies of the legislative assembly of the previous, second convocation began to work on.
The bill provides for financial compensation for the costs of Vladivostok in performing the functions of the administrative center of the region (costs for conducting regional and federal events, protecting monuments, maintaining, building roads and other capital functions, which the city currently pays from the municipal budget). All of the above expenses amount to at least 10% of the total revenues of the city budget. Now Vladivostok will be guaranteed to receive at least 300 million rubles annually. from the regional budget. The specific amount will be determined when the Primorsky Territory budget is approved. The mayor of Vladivostok, Vladimir Nikolaev, has repeatedly stated that he is going to spend this money “exclusively on the improvement of the city.” First of all, Mr. Nikolaev plans to renovate the facades of old houses in the city center, as well as repair roads and embankments, which are now in disrepair.
Chairman of the Legislative Assembly of the Primorsky Territory Sergei Sopchuk said yesterday that the bill on the new status of Vladivostok Primorye legislators adopted it very timely, in the year of the anniversary of the regional center, which will celebrate its 145th anniversary this summer. However, according to Vremya Novostei, the reason for assigning Vladivostok the status of the regional capital was not the anniversary, but the friendly relations of the new mayor of the city, Vladimir Nikolaev, with the governor of Primorye, Sergei Darkin. Messrs. Darkin and Nikolaev have known each other for a very long time. Therefore, when reputable businessman Vladimir Nikolaev became mayor of the city last July, the solution to many previously seemingly insoluble issues became significantly simpler.
Vladivostok has always been the administrative center of the Primorsky Territory. However, it never had the status of a seaside capital, although the city administration was very keen on this. The regional administration just as stubbornly opposed the desire of the city fathers to receive special status. “Vladivostok was an administrative center, that is, there was a line in the charter - nothing more. No one knew what this meant. The mayor of the city understood this in his own way, the governor - in his own way,” Nikolai Morozov, a member of the regional legislative assembly, told a Vremya Novostei correspondent. The struggle to give Vladivostok capital status lasted more than six years and was rooted in a long-standing confrontation between Mayor Viktor Cherepkov and Governor Evgeniy Nazdratenko. Further enemies became Mayor Yuri Kopylov and Governor Sergei Darkin, who until recently gave only negative opinions on the bill on the capital status of Vladivostok, explaining this unpleasant fact for Vladivostok residents by the insufficient justification of the law. Now old friends the mayor and the governor have reached an agreement.
Nevertheless, assigning capital status to Vladivostok could lead to a worsening of the situation in other large cities of the Primorsky Territory - Ussuriysk and Nakhodka. Each of them has more than 200 thousand inhabitants. Most likely, it is their budgets that will be sacrificed for the well-being of the regional center. Dmitry CHERNOV, Vladivostok |
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