Petersburg is primarily

Vladimir Putin dismissed the Governor of St. Petersburg Georgy Poltavchenko and appointed the head of the city of the little known Alexander Beglov to the post of acting. On the one hand, this is an ordinary episode in domestic political life, overshadowing the rotation of the governors has already become a habit. On the other hand, St. Petersburg, nevertheless, is not an ordinary region.

Vladimir Putin, we recall, he himself is a native of St. Petersburg, under the first post-Soviet mayor of Anatolia Sobchak, he occupied high posts in the administration and became close even then, in the first half of the 1990s, and even earlier, during his youth. So from the very beginning of his presidency, that is, from the very beginning of the 2000s, St. Petersburg was on a special account, many even said that direct presidential rule was being carried out in the city of de facto.

The mayor of the city of St. Petersburg A. Sobchak (on the right) and the head of the St. Petersburg FSB department V. Cherkesov (left) are transferred by icons seized from the smugglers, Igumeny of the St. John of the Patriarchal Monastery Seraphim. 1995 Sergei companies/ria novosti

At the same time, Petersburg is one of the largest regions of the country. Although the federal capital is Moscow, some central institutions, including the Constitutional Court, have been transferred to St. Petersburg. Petersburg is the fourth in population of the region (after Moscow, the Moscow Region and the Kuban), as well as the second - in terms of gross product (after Moscow).

Thus, we can confidently say that Petersburg is a key to the country of the region, to put managerial experiments on someone in the Kremlin is unlikely to come to mind, which means that the change of governor is a well-thought-out step.

To dismiss Grigory Poltavchenko, who headed the city since 2011, judging by publications in the press, it was possible at any time - he himself emphasized many times that he considers himself not a politician, but an official, but a good governor should be inconspicuous. Such behavior, perhaps, liked someone in the city against the backdrop of his predecessor Valentina Matvienko (who, on the contrary, loved publicity and sometimes seemed to appear in front of the television cameras almost every day), but at some point he began to use the reputation of the mayor, who did nothing. So almost the only thing that Poltavchenko was remembered is with his clumsy statements.

Georgy Poltavchenko (right) and Alexander Beglov Kremlin.ru

Alexander Beglov is also difficult to call a public politician, but he is an experienced administrator - perhaps even one of the most experienced in the country. Beglov is 62 years old, although he was born in Baku, he graduated from the Leningrad Engineering Institute and worked in the construction industry of St. Petersburg in the 1979-1991, which, by the time of the collapse of the USSR, was deputy chief of the capital construction department of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council.

In the 1990s, Beglov became one of the co-owners and the head of the Russian-German construction company Melazel-it was then that he, apparently, met Vladimir Putin, who headed the Committee on Foreign Economic Relations of St. Petersburg.

In 1999, already under the governor Vladimir Yakovlev, Beglov returned to the civil service, heading the administration of the resort district of St. Petersburg-the largest and one of the least populated in the city. In 2002, Beglov was held by the post of vice-governor, the head of the office of the administration of St. Petersburg, the second in the official hierarchy. As the press wrote then, this appointment was a compromise between Governor Yakovlev and Plenipotentiary Representative of the President in the North-Western Federal District Viktor Cherkesov.

In 2003, Beglov was already acting The provider of St. Petersburg-in this post, he ensured the election of Valentina Matvienko to the post of head of the city after the early resignation of Vladimir Yakovlev. After Beglov, he was not the first deputy envoy of the president in the North-Western District, and then was transferred to Moscow.

Vladimir Yakovlev. 1999 VVK121, Vladimir Vasiliev/Wikimedia Commons

In 2004, Beglov occupies one of the key positions in the presidential administration, the post of head of the Presidential Control Department, and in 2008-2012. He has already become the deputy head of AP. It was then that the press already appeared that Beglov could be appointed to the post of mayor of Moscow instead of Yuri Luzhkov (Sergey Sobyanin took this position) or to the post of governor of St. Petersburg. But instead, in 2012, Vladimir Putin, having returned to the Kremlin, appoints Beglov first his envoy in the Central District, and in 2017-in the North-Western District.

It is known about Beglov that he, like many in the highest echelons of power, openly professes Orthodoxy and even awarded the three orders of the Russian Orthodox Church. It is known about at least three members of the Beglov family, who work in the St. Petersburg administration. His wife Natalya Beglova has been the chairman of the registry office of the administration of St. Petersburg since April 2004. The eldest daughter Julia is the head of the legal support department of the Committee on Culture of St. Petersburg, and son-in-law, Pavel Aleksandrovich Belov, chairman of the Committee on Physical Culture and Sports of St. Petersburg since 2016.

After the appointment of Beglov, the journalists quickly found him, perhaps the most scandalous performance in recently-in March 2018, at a meeting with students and teachers of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic, he said that Russia should now perform three megaprojects: firstly, to create a new type of weapon, as the nuclear bomb in the 1940s, this will protect against the threat of physical invasion; Secondly, the modernization of the army and, thirdly, "the protection of the population, including the younger generation from the management of their consciousness from the outside." “One of the technologies [once , abbreviated in the US State Department] allows you to manage the creation of school parental to Omittes. Under the guise of different training courses, enemies penetrate the brains of parents, ” said Beglov then .

Alexander Beglov (left) and George Poltavchenko Kremlin.ru

It will be difficult to win competitive elections with such a “background” in one of the most opposition regions of the country of Beglov - especially since in 2019 elections of municipal deputies will also be held in the city, so there is no lack of political advertising. But it seems that the federal authorities do not care too much - otherwise another person would be selected into the mayor of St. Petersburg. Perhaps this, in turn, means that the defeat of candidates from the authorities in the September elections in 4 regions is perceived as an annoying failure, and not as a trend that needs to be responded. In any case, the actually recently appointed acting governors, if you do not take into account the new head of Primorye Oleg Kozhemyako , do not look like specially selected figures to win the elections. Both the new head of the Kurgan region Vladimir Shumkov, and the acting governor of the Lipetsk region, Igor Artamonov are good specialists, but not experienced politicians.