Fire trail

After the fire in Potapovsky Lane, the leadership of the Basmanny district changed

Last week, Olga Sevryukova, head of the Basmanny district council of the capital, lost her position. Moreover, she did not move to another job, but was forced to write a statement of her own free will at the insistence of the city leadership ....

Last week, Olga Sevryukova, head of the Basmanny district council of the capital, lost her position. Moreover, she did not move to another job, but was forced to write a statement of her own free will at the insistence of the city leadership. The reason for such a tough personnel decision is the actions of the ex-head of the council before and after a major fire in the house No. 6 in Potapovsky Lane ( see "New", No. 142 for 2009 ). Let me remind you that the house built in 1825 was officially settled in the summer, however, during the fire, according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, 124 people were evacuated from it (not counting those who left the premises on their own before the arrival of firefighters).

The next day, Sevryukova, in an official commentary, stated that only 38 citizens who independently settled there lived in the house - mostly homeless people. Novaya, however, managed to find out that the bulk of the residents are citizens of the CIS republics who worked in the housing and communal services of the Basmanny district and contracting organizations. Apparently, therefore, in the house, contrary to the rules, the electricity and water supply were not turned off. It was the short circuit that caused the fire. The fact is that the residents set up a kitchen on one of the floors for 12 electric stoves, where they prepared food not only for themselves, but also for catering outlets.

Later, our information was confirmed by the prefecture of the Central Administrative District, which conducted its own investigation. Considering the fact that after the tragedy in the Lame Horse club in Perm, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin introduced a new criterion for evaluating the work of governors - ensuring fire safety, the city government was forced to insist on the dismissal of Sevryukova.

At the same time, the heads of housing and communal organizations, who managed to issue a vacation retroactively, escaped responsibility.

Moreover, the problem of settling migrants - employees of DEPs in emergency houses is not unique to the Basmanny district. This is an established long-term practice throughout Moscow. However, no checks were made in other areas. That is, no one is going to solve the problem systematically.

It is symptomatic that the place of Sevryukova was taken by Sergey Kuznetsov, who previously headed the Yakimanka district council. In this area, the problem of underpopulation of dilapidated houses is even more acute: not migrants, but native Muscovites live in humiliating conditions.