Everyone will sit down

St. Petersburg civil servants never cease to amaze with their requests, especially when it comes to the interiors of office apartments. If you have toilet brushes, then it’s 13 thousand rubles each, if there are seats for them, then it’s 10 thousand rubles each. Now high-ranking bosses needed comfortable individual chairs with a bunch of conditions (we quote from the technical specifications): strong, stable, light-resistant, fireproof, with a hard-to-wear surface and even with a certain number of springs. These claims will cost the city a pretty penny. However, no crisis convinced budget managers to curb their appetites.

Officials spare no expense on their butts

Either a seat or a vision
An open competition for the supply of 265 conference chairs for the Assembly Hall was recently announced by the administration of the Nevsky District. Almost 4 million rubles have been allocated from the city budget to equip just this type of furniture and just one room. For each four-legged object, the authorities intend to pay 15 thousand rubles (with an average market value of an analogue from 3 to 6 thousand).
By Sept. 10, district officials hope to select someone who can offer them suitable seating. Apparently it won't be that easy. Because the authorities’ customers turned out to be extremely scrupulous when it came to the background issue. The requirements they set for essentially simple items barely fit on two pages of technical specifications. The organizers of the competition described in detail almost all the characteristics of the products themselves, as well as the materials used in their manufacture. Neither weight, nor size, nor color escaped the attention of dignified buyers. The properties of the chairs are also indicated, such as abrasion and abrasion resistance of the surface, light resistance and fire safety of the fabric, type of wood, density of polyurethane foam and even the number of springs. For an absolute understanding of producers and consumers, a sketch of the desired product is included in the technical specifications.

City of contrasts
St. Petersburg officials are no strangers to receiving exclusive benefits at public expense. At one time, they were not embarrassed by the purchase of skewers for 9,600 rubles apiece, brushes for 13 thousand, mixers for 32 thousand, etc. with budget funds (after the scandal, Smolny abandoned many pleasant little things. - N.P.).
Something else catches your eye. Servants of the people simultaneously buy chairs for schoolchildren and chairs “for state needs,” which are at least twenty times more expensive. By September 15, local authorities ordered 240 chairs for classrooms and offices of secondary school No. 497 in the Nevsky district at 641 rubles apiece. They will cost the city only 150 thousand rubles. There are also more modest government orders - 422 rubles per chair.
In addition, there is a striking contrast between the requirements for chairs for representatives of the executive branch with the amount allocated for their satisfaction and the parameters of furniture for students with expenses for this item.
In the technical specifications for the supply of furniture to schools, there are no requirements for abrasion, fire safety, light and abrasive resistance of materials. Metal and plastic - everything that is agreed upon. The documents only emphasize that the product must comply with sanitary rules and not have a harmful effect on humans.

The assembly hall, for which they are going to purchase chairs for 15 thousand rubles.

Back time
A comparison of items of the same purpose, but purchased for different groups of the population, leads to the conclusion: the seats of district officials are by far more demanding in terms of the properties and quality of seats than all others. Hence the difference in price.
However, as Novaya was assured by the administration of the Nevsky district, any purchase using budget money is justified.
“The law obliges us to monitor three companies and determine the average price for goods,” Natalya Shitova, press secretary of the Nevsky district administration, explained to Novaya’s correspondent. — But the law does not stipulate which companies need to be hired for monitoring.
In other words, average price is relative. Since with equal success both the prices of a furniture factory in Uryupinsk and the price lists of the largest manufacturers of luxury furniture from Italy and France can be taken as a model.
— Why do we need expensive chairs? Because we will put them in the assembly hall, where we hold holidays for mothers of large families on Mother’s Day, events for children, veterans, disabled people, public hearings and auctions for government orders,” Natalya Shitova answered to Novaya. “These chairs don’t fit our butts.” We don't sit on them. Administration employees gather in the assembly hall once a year - on March 8th. In 2008, renovations were made there. Now we can’t put stools there for two rubles...

There was no renovation
The decision to purchase expensive chairs was made by the head of the Nevsky district, Sergei Sitdikov. He also ordered the assembly hall to be put in order. As subordinates say, such repairs have not been seen in the administration for 70 years. We do not know its estimate. In contrast to the renovation that Sitdikov did in the same building in the spring of 2007. The transformation at that time cost the budget about 10 million rubles, and because of it, officials, together with the head of the district, came to the attention of regulatory authorities - due to suspicion of the unjustification of large budget expenditures.
At the beginning of 2008, journalists (including Novaya Gazeta) published details of the renovation of Sergei Sitdikov’s workplace carried out in 2007. The media reported that as a result of work on the fourth floor of the building, the head of the administration managed to equip himself with a personal toilet, shower and gym. Photographs published in the press allowed anyone to see the decoration of the head’s office, usually hidden from prying eyes. A scandal broke out...
As a result, for 2008–2009. In the administration of the Nevsky district, the Control and Audit Department and the Chamber of Control and Accounts of St. Petersburg conducted three inspections, one of them by order of the city governor Valentina Matvienko. However, at that time, inspectors did not identify any violations during repair work and the purchase of equipment for state needs.
As it turned out, the sports equipment purchased by the administration in 2007 was transferred for free use to the Olympic Reserve Sports School for Children and Youth No. 1 in January 2008. In 2008–2009 employees of regulatory authorities did not see any simulators in Sergei Sitdikov’s office.
“And the installation of a bathroom with a shower in the office of the head of the administration,” said his press service, “is not a violation of the law due to irregular working hours. As a rule, the head of the district is at work for 14–16 hours every day, and in case of force majeure - around the clock.”
Then, probably, the next acquisition of the district administration should be a sofa. I won’t even dare to guess for what amount...

Nina PETLYANOVA
Caricature by Victor BOGORAD