Eternal feudal lords

Andrei Kozenko studied the biographies of the main Russian governors-long-liver

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that is around the governor's deadlines. Now they will be counted only since 2012. This will lead to the fact that new long-livers will appear in regional politics who will lead the subjects of the federation for 15-20 in a row. The special correspondent of Medusa Andrei Kozenko studied the biographies of those few governors who have already succeeded. Inevitable accusations of corruption and general fatigue from the same persons in their regions are accompanied by amazing results of governors in elections, which are gaining 60-80% of the vote. And another indispensable condition for longevity is complete loyalty to the federal center: opposition governors remained during the time of Boris Yeltsin.

Evgeny Savchenko

Governor of the Belgorod Region since 1993

In Russia, only one region remained, which has been managed by the same person for more than 20 years.

Late autumn 1993. President Boris Yeltsin, who had just won the confrontation with parliament, is being stripped by regions whose heads did not seem loyal to him. The head of the Belgorod region, he appoints agrarian Yevgeny Savchenko. In 1993, he was 43 years old; Until 1991, he made his career on the party line-for example, he managed to work as secretary of the CPSU of one of the areas of the Belgorod region. In the early 1990s, Savchenko moved to Moscow. The ill -wishers, who have accumulated enough for 20 years, have accumulated, they associate the move with the fact that the future governor supposedly illegally redistributed the state -owned cars of the Volga, or with the fact that he allegedly built a cottage in the protected zone. Nobody presented evidence. In Moscow, Savchenko served in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food for three years.

For 22 years in power, Yevgeny Savchenko was elected three times a popular vote. Every time in the first round, gaining more than 50% of the vote. Once again he was reassigned by Vladimir Putin - for the sake of this, the governor, like some of his colleagues, in 2007 went to early termination of authority. The last time Savchenko was elected in 2012. Thus, it turns out that he - according to the new law - works “first” period, and in 2017 he will be able to go to another. If this happens, then by the time of the end of authority in 2022 he will be only 72 years old.

Such a huge term of stay in power can be explained by the fact that Savchenko is close to the ideal of the Russian governor. In particular, he did not allow any scandals that went beyond the region. Troubles only once, when in 2005, Savchenko entered an acute conflict with his wife Yuri Luzhkov Elena Baturina-because of the lands that her Intaco company acquired in the Belgorod region.

Enshuman modesty: Savchenko loves to tell that he himself drives his car, the number of which all Belgorod knows - A031AA. Reasonable economic policy-in the Belgorod region, a powerful agrarian industry and several mining and processing plants. And no quarrels with the federal center. The president arrived, said that he was dissatisfied with the quality of medical equipment - which means that the governor sits in a tooth chair. He nods and agrees, while the head of state in the presence of federal television channels promises him to cure his teeth.

How to act in order to avoid excess noise around his person and his region, the governor showed everything in the same 2005. In the “Moscow Komsomolets”, in the midst of the conflict with Baturina, an article was released, not complimentary for the governor - and at the same time does not fully comply with the standards of objective journalism. This number of the newspaper simply did not reach Belgorod: the 30,000th circulation was arrested at the entrance to the region on suspicion of terrorism. And Savchenko then still sued MK and won it.

Savchenko only in the first years was in power in the "Agrarian Party", ideologically close to the Communist Party. The rest of the time is always in the party in power, no matter how it is called.

Belgorod region is a perfectly boring place in the good sense of the word. On the purity of the city and the quality of local roads in excellent degrees, dozens of high -ranking guests who came here were expressed. The governor gives them the Belgorodchina youth prize established in 1995. Children in schools will teach - the governor for a long time wanted this - the course of "Belgorian,". The regional administration started a frighteningly dreary account on Instagram , and it has as many as 382 subscribers.

There were insignificant - on federal scale - corruption scandals. The local opposition accused Savchenko of dictatorial management style, and the Communist Party of the Communist Party once, in 2010, generally refused to participate in the regional elections, considering their result a predetermined. About Savchenko in Belgorod, they openly say that he himself “appoints” both unicorns and the opposition. But this state of affairs seems to arrange everyone - Moscow in the first place. In the June rating of the effectiveness of the governors of the Civil Society Development Fund, Savchenko occupies the honorable third place. Which, in fact, means his inviolability.

Aman Tuleyev

Governor of the Kemerovo region since 1997

Back in February 2015, in the Kemerovo region, they were wondering who would replace Aman Tuleyev, who headed the region back in 1997. The Kremlin did not hide that he persuaded the veteran of Russian policy to retire. But he did not persuade: already in April, Tuleyev went into early resignation to prepare for the elections designated for September. The probability that he can lose them is close to a misunderstanding.

The 25 years of the political career of Tuleyev are clearly divided into two parts: the opposition - under Boris Yeltsin, statesman - under Vladimir Putin. The country truly learned about the former head of the Kemerovo Railway in 1991, when he announced the nomination to the president of Russia. And so it coincided that at the height of the election race, Tuleyev was next to the criminal who captured a girl named Masha Ponomarenko in Moscow. He offered himself as a hostage, and all television news releases started with the plot about this. Tuleyev gained more than 6% of the vote, and negotiations with criminals for him became almost hobby. All biographies of the future governor say that he did this at least four more.

Yeltsin Tuleyev hated. He supported the GKChP in 1991; The first president of Russia took revenge - the first governor of the Kemerovo region was Mikhail Kislyuk, a democrat, the leader of the labor movement and the enemy of Tuleyev at that time. In 1993, Tuleyev from Kemerovo will write open letters to Yeltsin, destructively evaluating the dispersal of the parliament.

All the 1990s he will be next to Gennady Zyuganov. At the end of the decade, he was considered even as the future leader of the Communist Party. But it turned out differently. In the summer of 1997, miners went on in Kuzbass, and few could handle this problem. Yeltsin was forced to appoint a popular Tuleyev among miners to the post of head of the regional administration, and in the fall of the same year in direct elections, he gained 94% of the vote.

Tuleyev has established himself as a rather bright governor with a pronounced authoritarian control style. In 1999, still formally remaining in the Communist Party, he supported the Unity of the Pro -Putinsky block in the State Duma, and later supported United Russia, entering it in 2005. The next two times-in 2005 and in 2010-it was reassigned to the post, and in the accompanying elections a huge number of votes were obtained by United Russia. For example, in the last large elections to the regional parliament in 2013, the party received 44 of 46 seats. And Tuleyevexplained the failure of the opposition to “boring slogans” and “schism”.

For Aman Tuleyev, it is very important to feel not just the head of the region, but the master who solves even those problems that officials of a different level can solve. For example, he, in fact, fired the head physician of the municipal ambulance when he found out that one of the brigades disrespectfully behaved in relation to an elderly person. Although the issue of municipal dismissals and appointments does not belong to the competence of the governor. "Do you want to be the richest in the cemetery?" -Tuleyev turned through the Russia-24 television channel to the owner of the trading network from the neighboring Altai Territory, pursuing two goals: to support the fighter for the people, and at the same time put on the network from another region.

The parliamentary opposition in the Kemerovo region is not easy, about the non -systemic and there is nothing to say. Governor's media relate to her frankly contemptuously. The Communists and the opposition media regularly lose lawsuits for the protection of honor and dignity for very significant amounts. When the local edition of the REN TV channel spoke about the frauds of regional officials with land plots, the broadcasting of the regional edition was simply disconnected .

The Kemerovo region receives the main income from coal and ore extraction. These industries are now in a rather difficult situation, and it was this that they told Tuleyev in the Kremlin, hinting at the need to resign. However, he decided that he would cope. Tuleyev is convinced that "if another person comes to power, the redistribution of property and a real fight for coal deposits will immediately begin in Kuzbass, which will entail sad consequences." Meanwhile, the region is one of the Russian leaders in the rests of the population. According to the officials themselves, the average debt of each resident of the region is 70 thousand rubles.

Now Tuleyev is 71 years old, but he makes it clear that he is still young. Then his press service calls for citizens to ride a governor's bicycle for free (no more than 15 minutes so that everyone has time). The governor himself in a white tracksuit convinces the countrymen of the benefits of Scandinavian walk - with the help of special, similar to ski, sticks.

Oleg Korolev

Governor of the Lipetsk region since 1998

The leading talk show on one of the Lipetsk television channels tells Governor Oleg Korolev that a set of rules for officials has been developed in Kazakhstan, what gifts they are accepted and which are not. "What work is being done in this direction?" - asks the journalist of the governor. “I propose to include logic,” Korolev replies with the pronunciation “G” characteristic of the southern dialect. - Kazakhstan is much south of us, and a sunny blow there on the brains is stronger. And we are north, we have a smaller sunny blow, and we have not reached that yet. ” Laughter in the audience. For this peculiar manner of communication, the Queen is popularly respected. He has been led by the Lipetsk region since 1998. It was reassigned twice, and in 2014 re-elected, gaining more than 80% of the vote. Thus, according to the new law, Korolev works only the “first term”.

He also has a quarry that is quite characteristic of the governor - agricultural and higher party education in Soviet times. In the 1990s, he became the head of the Lipetsk Council of Deputies-on the political structure of that time, this also meant membership in the Federation Council. In 1996-deputy chairman of the upper house of parliament. Then he went to the governor’s election and outplayed the overwhelming advantage-79% against 13.

The Lipetsk region is a quite successful region, which is part of the ten most developed in Russia in many respects: from the agricultural sector to the commissioning of new housing. “From Western sanctions, we in the Lipetsk region experience only deep satisfaction, because all our products are launched, new orders are going on,” the governor recently said . True, the opposition media consider the reigning calm here a quiet whirlpool, in which something bad happens with people objectionable to the governor. One of the high -profile crimes of the beginning of the century - the murder of the journalist of Novaya Gazeta Igor Domnikov - leads to the Lipetsk region. The investigation called the former vice-governor Sergei Dorovsky. He, according to law enforcement agencies, ordered the murder of a new journalist after a series of critical publications about the region.

An important part of the modern Lipetsk history is the complex relations of the governor with the head of the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant Vladimir Lisin, a man from the Forbes list with a richest biography, in which there was cooperation with George Soros, and rivalry with Vladimir Potanin. Secretly or openly, Korolev and Lisin fought for the influence in the region for more than a decade. Lisin claimed the post of governor, and the plant waged a powerful information war with the regional administration. Another war between Lisin and Korolev took place during the post of head of the regional branch of United Russia. But each time there were intermediaries from the federal center who settled the conflict. The struggle kept in good shape all its participants. NLMK was and remains the largest taxpayer in the region. The regional authorities constantly have to prove their viability. In general, it turns out. For example, one of the main troubles of all Russian regions is the budget deficit. In 2015, here it is about 4.3 billion rubles; Whereas in the neighboring Voronezh and Tula regions, the budget deficit is twice as much.

Now in the relationship of Lisin and the Queen, everything is relatively calm. Soon after the 2014 elections, they, for example, gave a joint press conference. In general, after the election, the current position is confident. It easily allows him to sing on the white birch television under his own guitar accompaniment, and then put off the guitar and say: “Baldezh!”

Sergey Morozov

Governor of the Ulyanovsk Region since 2003

The Ulyanovsk region was not lucky after the collapse of the USSR. Its first governor was a slightly eccentric communist Yuri Goryachev, then the paratrooper Vladimir Shamanov won him in the elections in 2000, who in military affairs clearly more meaningful than in the regional management. Hot water in residential buildings was absent for months. The region was synonymous with the word "depression". In 2003, the former policeman, the head of the Department of Internal Affairs Dmitrovgrad, and then Dmitrovgrad himself, won the elections. In 2006 and 2011, he was reassigned to a position without serious problems. Unless during the first reassignment they demanded to abandon ties with the financial and industrial group of the SOK, which had a reputation of the raider.

Ulyanovsk region is still poor and subsidized. The average salary is less than 20 thousand rubles. In the rating of the quality of life of Russian regions, it began only in recent years to rise in the middle of the list. All these years, Morozov is betting on foreign investments and attracting all -Russian attention of the initiative of varying degrees of extravagance.

As for the investment: Morozov himself reported that the region had already overtaken the significantly more successful Tatarstan and the Samara region as the pace of their attracting. Even now, in the midst of economic sanctions against Russia, Morozov travels to France and discusses projects worth more than a billion rubles with unnamed investors.

And as for extravagance , in the Ulyanovsk region, for example, they erected a monument to the letter “Yo” - in honor of its two hundredth anniversary. The governor proposed “giving birth to patriots” on the day of Russia on June 12. Local residents who calculated that it was necessary to conceive a child on September 12, so this day was christened - the day of conception (officially - family communication day; the sale of alcohol is prohibited). Morozov proposed to make the city an international center of airships - the idea so far hangs in the air. Morozov announced that Ulyanovsk is the birthplace of Kolobok. Another famous local native - Vladimir Lenin - Morozov proposed to be reburied in Ulyanovsk and create a monumental museum of the USSR here.

According to the political views of Morozov, it can be called a very moderate unicorn. Even from the high -profile political statements in connection with the accession of Crimea, he abstained, but he went there one of the first and concluded a dozen cooperation agreements. A very active Internet user, forces also local officials. He leads a blog in the Live Journal , Twitter , he also has an account of VKontakte .

There are a lot of local scandals around the governor and his activities. Either the inhabitants will go out against the construction of the hotel on the site of the square, then the governor is accused of growing tariffs for housing and communal services and corruption in this area. But he holds a blow and has already announced that he would take part in the governor's elections scheduled for 2016. Under the new legislation, this will be its last term.

Alexander Zhilkin

Governor of the Astrakhan region since 2004

Alexander Zhilkin became the governor of the Astrakhan region recently (compared to other centenarians)-in 2004, but in fact he is on leading roles in the regional administration since 1991. In August of that year, Zhilkin was among the defenders of the White House, he was even awarded a medal. And in the fall, Boris Yeltsin appointed Anatoly Guzhvin by the Astrakhan governor; Zhilkin became his permanent first deputy. In 2004, Guzhvin died, elections were announced where Zhilkin won, gaining more than 65% of the vote. Then he joined United Russia.

The first years of his governorship were relatively calm. Жилкин вел начатую еще в конце 1990-х борьбу с браконьерством, публично обещая, что не будет есть черную икру до тех пор, пока не восстановится нерест осетровых. Вел переговоры с «Газпромом» — для Астраханской области это стратегический партнер. В 2009 году Дмитрий Медведев, тогда — президент РФ, внес его кандидатуру на рассмотрение в областную думу, и за новый срок Жилкина депутаты проголосовали единогласно.

А вот потом в Астраханской области начались скандалы один громче другого. Еще в 2009 году он отправил в отставку двух, как тогда считалось, близких соратников — главу министерства имущества Нину Попову и своего заместителя Виктора Чалова, которого рассматривали чуть ли не как преемника Жилкина. По информации астраханских журналистов, Чалов, опасаясь антикоррупционных преследований, уехал в Словакию, с которой правительство Астраханской области несколько лет налаживало экономические связи. Все эти странные пертурбации много обсуждались на региональном уровне, попали и в несколько федеральных СМИ.

Весной 2012 года Астрахань уже всерьез обсуждали на федеральном уровне. Весной на выборах мэра здесь победил Михаил Столяров. Его оппонент из «Справедливой России», популярный в городе политик Олег Шеин был настолько впечатлен масштабом фальсификаций, что объявил голодовку. Обстановка тогда была совсем другой: под впечатлением от стотысячных митингов «За честные выборы» в Астрахань потянулись активисты со всего Поволжья и юга России, а потом и из Москвы. В частности, Шеина поддерживали Алексей Навальный, Ксения Собчак, а также думская фракция «Справедливой России» в полном составе, однажды прилетевшая в Астрахань на специальном чартере.

Жилкин от скандала постарался дистанцироваться. Встречался один на один с Навальным — скорее всего, из любопытства. Полиция по отношению к активистам была корректна. Оппозиционеры провели в Астрахани чуть ли не самый массовый митинг в истории города, но добиться перевыборов так и не смогли. Столяров остался мэром. Но ненадолго: в 2013 году его арестовали за взятку, и это вновь был всероссийский скандал. Мало того, Жилкин оказался еще и участником уголовного дела в отношении бывшего министра обороны России Анатолия Сердюкова. Его допросили как свидетеля: Сердюков просил Жилкина выделить землю не то под турбазу для военнослужащих (как утверждал сам бывший министр), не то под элитное место отдыха (как настаивало следствие). Да еще и Навальный на всю страну обвинял его в подозрительных госзакупках. Губернатору приходилось оправдываться .

Об отставке Жилкина в Астрахани в начале 2014 года говорили как о решенном деле. Однако он сумел отстоять свою кандидатуру в Москве, отказался от досрочной отставки, пошел на выборы и набрал 75% голосов. Сейчас тучи вокруг губернатора разошлись, он спокойно занимается повседневной работой. То дает две недели на ремонт городских дорог, то приказывает довести долю малого и среднего бизнеса в валовом региональном продукте (ВРП) до 50% (еще никому такого при нынешней бюджетной системе не удавалось). Также у губернатора есть весьма красочный аккаунт в инстаграме — и перспективы остаться в своем кресле еще на десять лет.

Поправки и уточнения. В первоначальном тексте статьи говорилось, что в биографии главы Новолипецкого металлургического комбината Владимира Лисина «перемешались залоговые аукционы, заказные убийства соратников, сотрудничество с Джорджем Соросом, соперничество с Владимиром Потаниным и прочее». Формулировка о заказных убийствах может быть прочитана неверно; в действительности, речь идет об атаке на бизнес Лисина, в результате которого в 1990-е были убиты несколько его соратников. We apologize to the readers.

Andrey Kozenko

Moscow