The level of communal conflicts in Nizhny Tagil continues to increase. As Znak.com learned, following the sensational confrontation between MUP Tagilenergo and CJSC Uralsevergaz over debts for gas supplied during the heating season, the situation is heating up around the main supplier of cold water and the operator of the city sewerage system - Vodokanal-NT LLC. The current municipal head, Sergei Nosov, rightly believes that such a strategic area as the city’s water supply should not fall out of sight of the city administration. And he has already made a “commercial offer” to the owners of the LLC, implying a redistribution of the business. The owners, who acquired the profitable asset under Nikolai Didenko, expressed disagreement and decided to defend themselves. No one can predict what this will all lead to.

The history of Vodokanal-NT LLC began under the mayor of Nizhny Tagil Nikolai Didenko, when a commercial structure replaced the municipal unitary enterprise that had gone bankrupt under the weight of debt obligations. Did the threads of this story lead to the mayor himself? Now it’s unlikely that anyone will say for sure. At least, people from Didenko’s own team assure that it was not the mayor himself who was behind the LLC, but his deputy Vladimir Belov. They still don’t consider him one of theirs. And as proof, they remember that he was almost the only one who retained his position under the next mayor, Valentina Isaeva (in 2012, Belov was made responsible for the failure of the “1000 households” program in Nizhny Tagil and he still lost his post in the mayor’s office).

“[The first director of Vodokanal-NT, Sergei] Usoltsev could have said something, but he took all the secrets with him to the grave (he died in November 2012),” recalls a former employee of the Tagil mayor’s office. Who is now behind the main water supplier of Nizhny Tagil is a mystery shrouded in darkness.

Therefore, many consider the idea of the new city leadership to regain control over this strategic area for life support to be not without meaning. A few months ago, Sergei Nosov made the first move. He proposed creating a joint venture in which 51% would belong to the municipality, and 49% to the owners of Vodokanal NT LLC. “A normal partnership offer. A similar thing was done for Tagilenergo (the two main creditors of NTMK and Uralsevergaz - editor’s note),” admits the head of the Tagil mayor’s office, Andrei Lenda. True, he does not know what stage the negotiations are at now.

“Nosov was given a refusal. Hundreds of millions of rubles are at stake, no one will just share such a business,” a city official reports instead.

The response measures did not take long. During the next adjustment of the city budget, the line about the allocation of 190 million rubles for the construction of treatment facilities at the Verkhne-Vyisky hydroelectric complex (its operator is Vodokanal-NT) was removed from expenses for 2013. At the same time, Nosov signs a resolution on the creation of the Vodokanal municipal unitary enterprise. And at the last meeting of the City Duma last Thursday, 500 thousand rubles were allocated from the budget to go through all the necessary legal procedures for registering a new enterprise.

Nosov’s team believes that there is a reason to force the issue. According to its representatives, the lion's share of contracts for repairs of Tagil water pipelines and sewer networks goes to SSMU 11 LLC, headed by Maxim Solozhnin. “Solozhnin is the son-in-law of [former vice-mayor of Nizhny Tagil, and now head of the social policy committee of the Sverdlovsk legislative assembly Vyacheslav] Pogudin. Naturally, control over the quality of work of such a structure is minimal. I’m afraid to even predict when all this will explode, but what will explode is certain,” says an informed Tagil official.

The current director of Vodokanal NT, Sergei Silyaev, refused to comment on the situation by phone, promising to meet with the correspondent of our publication during his next visit to Yekaterinburg. But Vyacheslav Pogudin said that he only knows about the events around the Tagil Vodokanal “from hearsay” and none of his relatives are in any way “connected with this enterprise.”

However, Nosov’s opponents, and there are also plenty of them in the city, claim that everything that is happening around the Tagil communal apartment is nothing more than “an attempt to centralize financial flows and managerial powers” in the hands of the mayor himself: “It’s just that before all this went past Nosov, now through him. There is only one scheme. The same thing happened with “Tagilift” (serves the city’s elevator industry). There was a commercial structure, they made an “offer”, the city became a joint venture - 51%, the old Tagillift - the remaining 49%. It’s just that in this case [Gennady] Makarov did not resist, so he was appointed director of the joint venture.” Next on the list “for re-registration” are “Tagilenergo” and “Vodokanal-NT”.

Those who try to adhere to neutrality also note the “centralization” of the urban economy of the Nosov administrations, ironizing about the topic of “absolute power.” But they draw attention to the fact that this is an inevitable adjustment after the excessive “decentralization” that took place under Didenko. Its direct consequence is colossal debts to energy suppliers and poor quality services to public utilities, which have become a real scourge for the city. However, whether the mayor’s actions are aimed at a banal redistribution of spheres of influence or at a real improvement of the situation is still a big question.

The head of Nizhny Tagil took a course towards absolutism