The page of the handle in Tula was read to the end

On July 29 this year, President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on the early termination of powers of the leading Tula region Vyacheslav Dudka. He later introduced to the regional parliament the candidacy of a member of the United Russia faction in the State Duma of Vladimir Gruzdev to give the authority of the governor. Voting on this issue will be held on August 18.

The “Vyacheslav Dudka case” began with the fact that at the beginning of last year the Tula entrepreneur Valery Sokolov wrote a statement to law enforcement agencies. He argued that the director of the Department of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Administration of the Tula Region, Alexei Lazarev, extracts a bribe from him, and does this on behalf of the governor Vyacheslav Dudka. Lazarev was arrested, at the trial he took on himself and in November 2010 was convicted of seven and a half years in prison.

Valery Sokolov told Radio Liberty:

- Lazarev directly told me that if, at the request of the governor, I will take the founder either his wife or his classmate in the Tula artichille to my company, I will be guaranteed the volume of work, and it will be possible to forget about checks of controlling organizations. Lazarev did not hide the name of Dudka from me. He said so, sometimes calling him, sometimes pointing a finger upstairs: they say, this is not my whim, otherwise there will be a trouble. And the trouble came - we were deprived of four licenses, making it clear that they are powerful and omnipotent people.

- But at the trial, Lazarev did not dare to tell the truth.

- According to our data, Lazarev was promised that he would soon be free ...

Very soon the story repeated. On January 6 of this year, the director of the Department of Property and Land Relations of the Administration of the Tula Region Viktor Volkov was detained with forty million rubles. The official explained that the money is not him: the bribe from the Greenn corporation for providing a land plot in two and a half hectares in Tula, he had to transfer to the governor for the construction of a hypermarket. Entrepreneur Valery Sokolov explains Volkov's frankness:

- Volkov had a different situation. When Lazarev robbed us with the pipe, they had a division: both received the ladies. And Volkov was almost nothing due. He just fulfilled the will of the pipe: to take money and then transfer it to the boss. So what can he hide, Volkov?! And there are enough such episodes in the case of a pipe, there would only be the will of the investigation - to investigate everything. He also ruined the entire area: we have no construction projects, no roads, dilapidated housing is not demolished, and new houses are not being built. Tula lives like a provincial provincial town with the advent of Mr. Dudka.

- Do you believe that this case will be brought to the logical end?

- Definitely. There is no longer the possibility of turning events. Otherwise, no power can look in the eyes of the people. Now, when the case is initiated by the pipe, we are not talking about a possible sentence, we are only talking about the fact that this case will reach the court - now I am 100 percent sure of this, ”says Valery Sokolov.

Dudka himself rejects all the accusations and claims that "he never took bribes." About the reaction in Tula to initiate a criminal case against the ex-governor is told by the Director General of the Tula News news agency Andrei Mazov :

- The political elite of the region is surprised that so little time has passed from the moment of resignation to the moment of initiation of the criminal case. Moreover, the governor left his post of his own free will. If this happened with the wording "on the loss of confidence", then the initiation of a criminal case would be more logical. As for the resignation of the governor in principle, the political elite of the region very, very positively reacted to this fact.

The only deputy of the Tula Regional Duma, who voted against the endowment of Vyacheslav Dudka by the Governor's powers for the second term at the beginning of last year, was a member of the Fair Russia faction Vladislav Sukhoruchenkov . The most important thing is what conclusions will be made from the case of the Tula ex-governor, he believes:

- Those who at one time suffered from the persecution and voluntarist decisions of Dudka are satisfied with this decision. Among them are several deputies, against whom, at the insistence of the pipe, criminal cases were initiated. "United Russia" is trying not to comment on this situation now - they are afraid to say too much. I consider it very important that PR does not make from what happened, and the case is transferred to the plane of the normal legal process. Because it is one thing to say that it is necessary to deal with corruption, and another thing is to really bring this struggle to the logical end, ”Vladislav Sukhoruchenkov concludes.

The era of Vyacheslav Dudka remained in the past, and the political elites of the region are preoccupied with other problems, says Vladimir Dorokhov : the chairman of the Tula regional branch of the Yabloko party:

- The elite is more preoccupied with his fate: the new governor is like a new broom ... He does not have his own team here. Will he create it from the frames of the pipe? This is unlikely. Maybe he will bring people from Moscow? The elite is in fear, and the fate of the Dudka is already worried ...

“... We have three previous governors to be prosecuted. I want this page to be turned over,” said Vladimir Gruzdev, acting Governor of the Tula region. “... Despite the fact that I have not grown on this earth, I will make every effort to benefit this region,” the Kremlin appointment agencies bring the words of the Kremlin appointment.

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  Vitaly Kamyshev

  Radio Office of Radio Liberty. Cooperates with the radio station since 1997. He worked in the journal The New Times, the newspaper Arguments and Facts, was a regular author of the newspaper Russian Thought (Paris) in 1995-2000. Kamyshevv@rferl.org