| The Sverdlovsk governor unexpectedly made peace with the mayor of Yekaterinburg Residents of the Sverdlovsk region received an unexpected gift for the 282nd anniversary of Yekaterinburg - three days before the celebration, the regional and city authorities concluded a kind of amicable agreement. More precisely, their top officials are the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, Eduard Rossel, and the mayor of Yekaterinburg, Arkady Chernetsky. The confrontation between the two leaders lasted almost 13 years - from the end of 1993, when by decree of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Mr. Rossel was removed from the post of chairman of the regional executive committee. Then the head of Yekaterinburg decided not to support the disgraced leader, but sided with the new regional head, Alexei Strakhov, who had long worked as Mr. Chernetsky’s first deputy.
Naturally, Eduard Rossel could not forget about this for a very long time. Moreover, in the 1999 gubernatorial elections, Arkady Chernetsky was his main opponent, sharply criticizing Mr. Rossel’s style of work, and in the next campaign - 2003 - although he did not participate himself, he helped the governor’s rivals. If we add here the permanent alliances of Mayor Chernetsky with all possible opponents of Governor Rossel and their joint consultations with the presidential administration on the topic: “How can Rossel be replaced,” then it becomes clear why a year and a half ago the head of the region not only nominated his candidate for the election of the head of Yekaterinburg, but he also publicly declared to voters: “Even if you elect Chernetsky, I will not work with him.”
Taking into account all of the above, one can only guess what caused the sudden dramatic warming of relations between the Sverdlovsk governor and the Yekaterinburg mayor, which emerged in just one week in August. On August 17, a special commission of the city administration, on the eve of the 282nd anniversary of Yekaterinburg, awarded Eduard Rossel the title of honorary resident. The wording surprised many. The governor, whom the mayor's office has repeatedly accused of cutting the revenue side of the Yekaterinburg budget and unwillingness to help the municipality develop, received the title for “increasing the well-being of citizens.”
An employee of the mayor's office, who asked not to give his name, explained that what happened was a sensational event: Mr. Rossel demanded to be given such a title for three years in a row, but was constantly refused. And then suddenly the mayor’s office met him halfway. And at what point - in addition to City Day, Eduard Rossel had a personal holiday last weekend - 10 years since his first election as governor. True, a city hall official clarifies: “The regional government was the first to make a proposal for peace. We just didn’t refuse.”
Already on Friday, Mr. Rossel, interrupting his vacation, visited the administration and received a badge of honor from the hands of the mayor. And already in this step there is an interesting detail - the governor usually does not refuse a single day of rest. Even this year, he ignored a special meeting with the presidential envoy to the Ural Federal District, Pyotr Latyshev. A meeting where First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Russia Alexander Chekalin presented a set of measures to reduce the crime rate, which will be implemented in the Urals Federal District within three years. For the head of the Sverdlovsk region (it ranks second in Russia in terms of the number of crimes after Moscow), the event was more than important, but the governor avoided participating in it. But he willingly returned to work in order to receive the order.
The governor commented on the reasons for his reconciliation with the mayor in a highly strange manner. “There was no confrontation between me and Arkady Mikhailovich. It’s all of you who are inflating the confrontation,” he announced to the stunned journalists. An employee of the mayor's office explained the emerging world differently: the regional authorities took it upon themselves to extract targeted funding from the federal budget to solve the transport problem of Yekaterinburg, which has been choked by traffic jams for the third year. At the beginning of September, Eduard Rossel wants to discuss the possibility of such financing with Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov, and then, with the help of loyal State Duma deputies, make proposals when considering the budget.
This version was partially confirmed by the mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkady Chernetsky. Presenting the award to Eduard Rossel, he said that this year he managed to find a common language with the regional government on the transport problem, but in the future he would like to receive another 1-1.5 billion rubles from the regional treasury. to fight traffic jams. Apparently, this is the price that the Sverdlovsk budget will now pay for the new status of governor, which guarantees him free travel on transport and benefits when paying for utilities.
What prompted Mr. Rossel himself to go to peace with his old rival remains a mystery. According to one version, at 67 years old, he simply wanted to get a new title. According to another, more plausible, political truce is a demand of the federal authorities, who are tired of the squabbles between the two centers of power in the Urals. Most likely, observing the latest personnel appointments in Nizhny Novgorod, the Altai Territory and the Irkutsk Region, where people who were not related to any of the current political forces became governors, the main bosses in the Sverdlovsk Region decided to make peace on their own. So that they don’t send a “stranger”. Mikhail VIUGIN, Ekaterinburg |
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