Democracy from below

Experience of the Kirov region: if you cannot break the system, then you can at least build a water supply system

On the central square of Kirov, flags with portraits of Putin and Medvedev are sold along with pirate flags. The price is the same

Creer from the inside. On a single voting day in 12 regions of the country, elections were held in legislative assemblies. United Russia again proved that the party is our steering, as well as the mind, honor and conscience of the era. Who would doubt it! But there is one region of Russia, where, it would seem, not everything is so clear. The Kirov region, where the elections to the local legislative assembly were also held, is headed by a native of the democratic opposition, the former leader of the ATP. Governor Nikita Belykh was in an interesting position: on the one hand, it is necessary to play according to the rules of the system, providing the right amount of votes in favor of the authorities, on the other hand, follow his own liberal beliefs. Is it possible to break the system alone from the inside - I found out The New Times

According to preliminary data, United Russia gained 36.54%of the vote, the Communist Party - 22.54%, Fair Russia - 20.88%, LDPR - 17.27%. On the eve of the elections in the center of Kirov, it is notable. In the square in front of the Gray House (as the people are popularly called the regional house of the government), agitators from United Russia give a rare passer -by “brief manual for men” with advice that to give their beloved women on March 8, and a frozen grandmother in a sheepskin coat cannot sell flags with portraits of Putin and Medvedev: 70 rubles per piece by local standards - expensive. Well, there would be richer - why the Kirovites are faces of Duumvirat, when the symbols of power - free and everywhere. At the world -newspaper world championship, it was not without a poster: “We will win with United Russia!”
Nikita Belykh appears on an open area next to the Kirov springboard, where the championship takes place, unexpectedly: in jeans and a red sports jacket, practically unaccompanied, it does not correspond to the philistine ideas about what the head of the region should look like. However, the locals were already getting used to it: their governor is one of the few representatives of the authorities who does not seek to observe the bureaucratic dress code. Having awarded the winners, the whites climbs into the jeep again: you need to have time for a train to Moscow - to sign an agreement with Sobyanin on cooperation. “Have you seen? - The governor turns to the New Times correspondents. - posters with United Russia are hanging, but they did not say a single word about her from the rostrum. I insisted on this, although it was not easy. But there should be honest competition. ”
Between the devil and the deep sea
He does not hide the whites: it is difficult for him. Since he was put at the helm of the Kirov region in December 2008, it is necessary to maneuver between two lights: “I am trying to distance myself as much as possible,” whites will frown. - But I can’t completely emerge from the situation. We have to delegate some people in United Russia, to the election campaign. " “Some” are white about their deputies: “I thought: it’s easier if it is someone understandable to me.” The governor claims: he was not set the task of ensuring the victory of United Russia at 50% and higher. According to him, the real EP rating in the region also ranges from 45 to 55%. “Here the bar of 70% would have been delirium,” says Belykh.
In the middle of party showdowns, you need to carry the main cross. And he went to the whites heavy: the Kirov region - one of the poorest and drink the regions of Russia: a lot of criminal zones, few profitable enterprises *** According to the independent institution of social policy, according to the shower gross regional product, the Kirov region is almost half as much as the average -Russian indicator. With the diagnosis of alcoholism, registered in the drug dispensaries of the region, about 30 thousand people, or 2182 people per 100 thousand people .. and here it is necessary to climb - meanwhile, as is customary, and how, according to conscience. The first option is to perform the “exploits of Heracles”, explains the whites: for example, open a school, hospital, road, hold the World Cup. “This option is understandable to the people, but does not solve the problem, but only plugs holes,” the governor explains. The second option is to conduct serious institutional changes. The “minus” is that the effect of such changes will not come soon: “These are things on which you can lose popularity if you have it.” White chose the middle path for himself. He opens the ice palace-the 20-year-old long-building, completes the doll theater, repairs roads, fights drunkenness, personally abandoning alcohol, and at the same time tries to develop local government and change the mentality: “Local mentality is the main obstacle,” the whites complains. - Continuous paternalist sentiments. The expectation that the authorities will solve everything for you. ”
The authorities really made an unconventional decision: the vice-governor of the Kirov region, Maria Gaidar, in 2010 launched a project to support local initiatives in the region. Its essence is that the people themselves decide what they need, and power helps morally and financially. The result was surprised not only by the authorities - the people themselves.
Revolution Titorenko
When Elena Petrovna Titorenko keeps speech, it seems to be heard on the opposite end of the village. Either this is a professional (in the past life of Titorenko - a kindergarten teacher), or recent events influenced: in the village of Pishnur, the Arbazh district of the Kirov region, for the first time in 37 years, a new water supply was held. And not just spent, but on their own. Elena Petrovna was the main tank, despite the fact that the village of Pishnur is not a native for her: a native of Magadan, Titorenko moved to the Kirov region 10 years ago together with the children and her husband, to whom the friends advised the local land as a hunting.
She traveled to Kirov and brought news: they say, they give budget money to solve local problems - just show the initiative. The people in her village are 300 people. “We gathered an initiative group and began to walk around the village with a questionnaire - asked what people needed,” says Titorenko. “Most proposed the water supply: we have in 1973 the construction, the pipes are rusty, the water did not pass in the summer at all.” The area set the condition: the main finances are given by the government, but the people should also participate - at least one ruble. And yet - to look for the sponsors themselves, find the contractors, make an estimate. In general, to be independent. “Vasily Mikhailovich and I, the former director of the school, crawled with a roulette in the snow, measured the length of the pipes-there were no schemes left,” Elena Petrovna shows archival photographs. The people were given a diva, climbed out of the houses, and then woke up themselves: 1.5 thousand rubles from each family were collected without problems, only one slammed one door - they were left without a water supply.
As a result, the project in the government approved, the money was allocated - and it started. The operation "Vodvon" lasted from July to October. All this time, Elena Petrovna was sleeping badly - the builders controlled: those days of the builder, then pipes are not the same size. The crown of the gasket of a two -kilometer water supply was a green water tower: today it flaunts on the horizon of Pishnur as a symbol of the celebration of a local initiative. “If we do not do it ourselves, no one will do it,” Elena Petrovna sums up. “True,” confirms Vasily Mikhailovich Nonfema, a member of the initiative group. - Before the past elections, people appeared here - they promised to spend the road. And the elections went - and where did they go? Now, if those whom we choose, also actively behaved after the election, then another thing. ”
The current elections of the villagers do not care too much, although the mandatory agitinabor of United Russia flaunts in the corner of the village council of Pshnur. “The regional authorities are not too quarrel in our country, there is little use from them,” explains the non -residency. However, the former school principal will still go to vote - for the Communists. And Elena Petrovna, meanwhile, believes that the main thing is not the party, but the people who are behind her. And by the way, he notes: only the water supply was able to reconcile it with the communist with non -residency Vasily Mikhailovich, a long -standing political opponent.
Men on dancing
Elena Petrovna’s activity did not go unnoticed: she was determined by the project consultant to support local initiatives. Since then, the houses of Titorenko rarely saw: two adult daughters, a little son and husband were yearning for their mother went around 11 districts. Explained, interpreted, persuaded. “Distrust in people is complete,” Titorenko complains. -The village is forgotten-raised. The people no longer believe the authorities, but he himself does nothing. ” Elena Petrovna, in the words of the locals, began to work as a “lighter”. And lit. And at the same time found out: the driving force of the process is women. “Choose an initiative group,” says Titorenko. - Men sit down and are silent like fish. And women are scribbled, they ask questions! "
So, mainly by female forces, the project began to grow: if 6 districts were selected in 2010, and 20 million rubles were allocated from the regional budget, then 150 million budget rubles were allocated for 2011 and covered the entire Kirov region-39 regions. “We have no task to distribute money,” explains Tatyana Antonchik, deputy head of the Department of Social Development of the Kirov Region. - There is a task to change the attitude of the population and make him believe in his own strength. We are fighting dependent. " The people seemed to believe: dozens of applications rained down - it was painful! In 2010-26 projects, in 2011-already 188. The subject of the first need was, like in the village of Pishnur, water supply, then roads were followed, then the improvement of territories and sports facilities. It turned out that the personal invested ruble (financing conditions for any project) is a guarantee of indifference: people demand a report for it.
“The people woke up,” says Tatyana Antonchik. - People themselves were dumbfounded by the effect. One head of the settlement said to me: "If not for your project, I would not have worked like that." Maria Gaidar is satisfied with the result: “We managed to hack the system, this is the main thing,” she shared with The New Times. “Having learned to work together, people began to do a lot on their own, for example, by building the road, simultaneously dug up a pond, and we learned about it by chance.”
Search for meanings
However, the experiments of the White teams are happy to meet far from everyone. Active Kirov Entrepreneur Sergey Kosolapov, who supplies coffee machines for network trade, as well as the co -owner of the Malina men's club, is often dive with the Kirov governor in the Live Journal. “Potentially our governor is a reformer. But he lacks determination and desire to go to the end, ”he said in an interview with The New Times. And then - tougher: “What did Don Quixote do? He took and chopped the mills. And this one walks and says to everyone: “There are mills. They must be chopped. In principle, if you cut these mills, I will make atomic reactors in their place. I even have money for this. ” We took out the checkers, flew into these mills, sparkled them properly, the tree pushed out, and inside - a stone. We can’t really do anything, but the plaque itself was so normal - the mills were frightened. We resort to Nikita Yuryevich and say, they say, the stone mills turned out to be, we would add gunpowder and blow them to the hell. And he answers us: “Guys, I did not know that they were stone. Let's like this: we will build atomic reactors around the mills. But - no longer with you. Because I realized that these mills are generally impossible to break. May we have a city of mills and a city of nuclear reactors at the same time. ”
Through the efforts of Elena Titorenko and Vasily Beznyzhny in the village of Pishnur, water supply appeared
The second claim to the whites does not attract new people. “Those people who are around him, they are all the same, we know them well. We know who is a thief, who is a fool, who is just a technical person. We know who takes money in envelopes. We cannot prove - they are also shallow. Yes, and we do not need it. But we all know about everyone, ”says the entrepreneur. Kosolapov believes that it is necessary to create a mechanism for recruiting a new managerial elite: everything again turned into another “golden personnel reserve”, which only in my century is already the seventh, ”says Kosolapov, who once, at 23, was the dean of the branch of the Moscow Financial and Legal Academy, and then worked in the Committee for Youth of the Government of the Region, developed and led the supported and led the supported White project "Modernization: 43rd region". That is, he personally tried to change something in the prevailing system.
Kosolapov agrees: there are problems with the fact that the Kirovites are used to waiting for the instructions of the master from above. That is why entrepreneurs of the region offered white regular meetings with business, not for conversations for life, but to discuss specific projects. “We suggested to him: let's gather once a month not for blah blah, but for a real project game. There is no talk of our business projects, about our participation in the development strategy of the Kirov region, which, from our point of view, is still not. We were ready to do it, ”says Kosolapov. - What is needed for this? Rent a room, brew coffee? To do this, only one thing is needed - so that Nikita Yuryevich guarantees his presence at this event. Once a month! But not such a presence as "Hello, friends!" At this idiotic forum on economic development, which United Russia prepared. There, experts spoke for 50 minutes, and our guys only performed with questions like “What the hell are we somewhat some crap, if no one is going to provide us here?” “But he is not even ready to listen,” Kosolapov assures. “He always has more important things to do.”
Rules of the game *
The governor has his own version: “We tried to meet with forest manufacturers, as well as with the owners of personal subsidiary farms,” says Belykh. - As soon as you start talking to them about state support and ask for numbers on circulation, implementation, they immediately change the topic. Because they often work according to gray schemes. But the dialogue implies mutual transparency. ”
Kosolapov sharply descends to this: the whites had a “gut of thin”. He suppose he thought: "So I will integrate into the system and do as I want." I tried to lead the principle of “do as me” - for example, he abandoned his salary in favor of building ramps for the disabled. But people perceived it as a self -patient. Nikita was upset - and hung, rebooted. " Why is it "rebooted"? Answer: “He sees himself here (that is, in the Kirov region.-The New Times) for 5 years, and then somewhere in the presidential team in 2014.”
Well, the main economic mistake of the governor, according to local businessmen, was that the whites went along the old but not good way - redistribution of budget funds. “It is clear that there will never be enough money in the budget,” says the businessman. “The reformer should come up with meanings for which it would not be a sink to carry his own money.”
The whites only sighs sadly: the area is subsidized, the money is in Moscow, the vertical has not gone anywhere. In other words: there are established rules of the game that allow a different degree of observance of decency. The whites are trying not to intercede the line, but he has no strength, and he has no opportunity to go a marching system. There was once a desire-when he led to the Parliament of the ATP, and the policemen “screwed” him on the “marches of the disagreement”. But that was another game and another life.
However, the Belykh and his team consider the project to support local initiatives by the very meaning that local businessmen expect from him. Maria Gaidar believes that this project taught people to interact with each other and with the authorities. And this is already a lot.
Well, as for a single voting day, he is here, both of the village and entrepreneurs, was, as they say, by the drum. They did not expect anything from his outcome: “United Russia” and its elections are separate, and life is separate.