Tyagachev-on-Don

The head of the Russian Olympic Committee will become a senator

The Federation Council will soon be replenished with another former athlete playing on the United Russia political team. On June 28, at the next meeting of the legislative assembly of the Rostov region, the candidacy for the Senate of the President of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) Leonid Tyagachev, a personal friend and alpine skiing coach of President Vladimir Putin, should be approved. Mr. Tyagachev’s candidacy has already been agreed upon with the leadership of the regional parliament and the Chairman of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov, who, apparently, is finding it increasingly difficult to resist the rapid growth in the number of United Russia members in his chamber. And for Leonid Tyagachev, senatorship can become a safe haven in the event of his resignation from the post of president of the ROC. It is curious that at the end of 2003, during the reign of Akhmat Kadyrov, Mr. Tyagachev was nominated to become a senator from Chechnya .

The United Russia faction in the legislative assembly of the Rostov region yesterday approved Leonid Tyagachev as its representative in the upper house of the federal parliament. The president of the Russian Olympic Committee himself told the press that he would agree to become a representative of the legislative assembly of the Rostov region in the Federation Council in the event of an official proposal: “I have not yet been approached with such a proposal, but some negotiations have been and are ongoing. I consider it important and honorable to represent the interests of the Rostov region in the upper house of our parliament. After all, the Southern Federal District and especially this region are the so-called support base in our sports base, in the training of athletes of the highest category.”

According to current legislation, the right to represent the interests of the region in the upper house is given to two candidates - from the governor and parliament. In September 2005, former Deputy Minister of Finance Evgeny Bushmin was elected head of the regional administration, who now heads the Senate Budget Committee. Another United Russia member, the head of the agro-industrial group “South of Russia” Sergei Kislov, was elected from parliament in March 2006, but the Senate did not confirm him in this position. According to the rating compiled by Finance magazine, Mr. Kislov is among the 500 richest Russians. In March last year, the local parliament even received an official appeal from Sergei Mironov, in which the speaker proposed to regional parliamentarians the candidacy of Rostovite Valentina Petrenko, a senator from Khakassia. At that time, Ms. Petrenko, according to some sources, was planning a conflict with the elites of the region she represented, and the head of the Federation Council was afraid of missing out on such an employee. Valentina Petrenko now still represents the government of Khakassia, and Sergei Kislov was never confirmed in office.

The law does not provide for a period during which the Federation Council must consider a candidate submitted by a region. And after amendments were made in December 2004 to the law on the formation of the Chamber of Senators, a representative of the region becomes only from the moment his powers are confirmed by the Federation Council, and not from the time of voting for him in the region. There have already been cases when, due to “technical problems with documents,” some candidates never became senators. Undesirable candidates simply “hung” in the air, and then a worthy replacement was found.

Leonid Tyagachev was born on October 10, 1946 in the village of Dedenevo, Moscow region. In 1973, he graduated from the Faculty of Physical Education of the Moscow Regional Pedagogical Institute named after Krupskaya. From 1996 to 1999, Tyagachev headed the State Sports Committee of the Russian Federation. Since 1998, he has been the first vice-president of the Russian Olympic Committee, and since July 2001, the president of the Russian Olympic Committee.

There is little that connects Mr. Tyagachev with Rostov, but in the Federation Council there are already many athletes from regions “not native” to them. Most recently, the former captain of the Moscow football team “Spartak”, player of the Italian “Roma” and the Portuguese “Porto” Dmitry Alenichev became a senator from the legislative assembly of the Omsk region. Handball goalkeeper, three-time Olympic champion Andrei Lavrov represents the Ryazan region in the Federation Council, the former top scorer of Russian mini-football Konstantin Eremenko represents the Voronezh region. Ex-footballer of Moscow “Spartak” Valery Gladilin has been representing the Ust-Ordynsky Buryat Autonomous Okrug, which will soon become part of the Irkutsk region, for more than three years. And the head of the Russian Football Union, Vitaly Mutko, was confirmed as a senator from the administration of St. Petersburg even before his appointment to the post of the main football boss of Russia.

Daria GUSEVA