Translated material
Road song
Sergei Mironov complained to regional authorities about federal
The road fund must be revived, and mayors of large cities must be appointed. Speaker of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov came up with such initiatives in Yekaterinburg, thereby quickly finding a way to the hearts of the governors. Mr. Mironov shared his vision of the prospects for the development of the Russian state at a meeting of the council of representative bodies of local self-government of municipalities of the Sverdlovsk region, at which the head of the Senate was the guest of honor.“The heads of most municipalities should be elected by the population. There may be one exception to the rule of popular elections, which concerns the level of heads of regional capitals. There should be a connection between the governor and the mayor,” said Sergei Mironov. According to his logic, the heads of large cities should not go through direct popular elections, but through voting in the representative body of the municipality. The head of the Federation Council considers it wrong to completely abandon elections.
This proposal was perhaps the best news for the Sverdlovsk governor Eduard Rossel, who has been trying to replace the mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkady Chernetsky for eleven years. From the moment the Russian president received the right to appoint regional leaders, the Sverdlovsk governor has been seeking the right to appoint the mayor of his capital. Last year, Rossel and Chernetsky seemed to have publicly reconciled, but the governor’s team remains in favor of quickly replacing the mayor of Yekaterinburg with a person more loyal to the regional authorities. Therefore, the words of Sergei Mironov in the Middle Urals were received with joy. Eduard Rossel noted that the popularly elected heads of most capital cities “do not pass the test of power and money.”
The remaining theses of the speaker of the Federation Council also evoked a lively response from the Sverdlovsk authorities. Sergei Mironov heartily criticized the federal authorities for transferring powers to the regions that were not supported by a financial base, for the too high increase in utility tariffs, proposed replacing the minimum wage with a living wage, demanded that gaming establishments be moved outside the cities and insisted on the revival of the road fund . The head of the Federation Council is convinced that without targeted accumulation of funds it will not be possible to bring the roads to normal condition. The Sverdlovsk authorities, who have been asking the Russian government to allocate 14 billion rubles for two years now. to solve the transport problem in Yekaterinburg, Mr. Mironov spoke about how the Cabinet of Ministers refused to approve even a very mild project of the fund, in which the region and the federation would each transfer 50% of the necessary funds.
Sverdlovsk officials listened to Sergei Mironov with understanding - a week before the arrival of the Speaker of the Federation Council, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin visited Yekaterinburg. The Ural authorities listed the same problems to him as they did to Mr. Mironov, but they did not find understanding from the member of the government. Tactfully, but at the same time categorically, Mr. Kudrin announced: the Russian government does not intend to transfer to the regions additional taxes, so heavily taken from them in the early 2000s, it is impossible to revive road funds, spend money from the stabilization fund on them, but you just need less embezzlement during road construction. “There is an opinion in the government that even with the current levels of funding, the volume of road construction could be greater. Are you sure that the quality of your new roads meets international standards?” the minister asked the governors of the Ural Federal District and himself answered: “Roads are built often, and after two or three years money is spent from the budget on its major repairs.” Then the Ural leaders did not like the minister’s words very much. Therefore, Sergei Mironov, who did not call on the local elite to “steal less,” was clearly more popular with the Sverdlovsk authorities.
For the sake of Russia's third party, Eduard Rossel's team completely redesigned the program of the XI Russian Economic Forum, the main topic of which was priority national projects. As planned by the organizing committee, its delegates were supposed to work in sections last Friday, and on Saturday attend the official opening with the participation of Governor Rossel and First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. However, the latter refused a visit to Yekaterinburg, and Sergei Mironov appeared in the forum program.
For the sake of his participation, the grand opening was postponed to 2 p.m. on Friday, when some of the sections were already working with all their might, and another opening was organized on Saturday. The organizing committee also turned a blind eye to the work of the sections, whose members decided not to work until the official end of their meetings, and, after discussing the problems for one or two hours, hastily left the halls for the Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theater. There in the evening there was a celebration of the tenth anniversary of the regional analogue of the Federation Council - the House of Representatives, for which Sergei Mironov came to Yekaterinburg.
For ordinary townspeople, all these statements, pleasing to the powerful ear, did not bring joy - since the evening of May 18, when Sergei Mironov arrived in Yekaterinburg, the regional center was simply paralyzed. The previous day, the traffic police department prudently recommended that all car owners not go out onto the streets. On Friday, the main intersections were closed to traffic; cars parked near buildings along the route of the Federation Council Speaker's motorcade were forcibly evacuated. At the request of Mr. Mironov’s security, even ambulances were prohibited from passing through the streets where the head of the Federation Council was supposed to pass. Fortunately, there were no deaths during Sergei Mironov’s visit, but doctors arrived many hours late to many calls.
Opposing such visits, Yekaterinburg residents organized a special action, bombarding the Russian President’s email inbox with their complaints. “How should a Russian citizen treat his government, which values the convenience of its movement above human life? Why should a Russian citizen vote for a government that values the convenience of its movement above human life?” - says one of the letters. On Ekaterinburg websites, cartoons appeared in which the speaker of the Federation Council is throwing cars with a shovel, saying: “Here’s a fight with flashing lights... Everyone in line.”