‘I have a selfie with Sergey Furgal’

Mikhail Degtyarev’s first press briefing as the Khabarovsk Territory’s acting governor, in brief

I just arrived and I already heard how people shouted at me from their windows: “Degtyarev, leave!” I will gladly go, but now is not the time — because there are priority tasks. Why I was the chosen candidate is a question for the president. But the fact that I am from the LDPR [Liberal Democratic Party] is out of the federal center’s respect for the voters. I flew for seven hours and for seven hours I read about the situation in the Khabarovsk Territory. Many of the economic indicators are deserving of respect, some are cause for concern — we’ll deal with it. I have already been to the region before, more than once. A year ago I was with Sergey Furgal at a hockey game, I have a selfie. And I also, through Interpol, helped find a girl whose father had secretly taken her away from her mother to the United States — they managed to bring her back to Khabarovsk, even [TV presenter] Andrey Malakhov filmed a broadcast about it. The father turned out to be a half-crazed supporter of Alexey Navalny. So there’s something that connects me with the region. Time will tell whether or not I will become a Khabarovchanin. I have good connections in Moscow, and I will use all of them to achieve the maximum results. If Furgal is acquitted, I’m not going to compete with him in the elections — I’ll pack my things and leave. Khabarovsk has the most civilized police force in Russia, but there’s no need to provoke them. I don’t think that if I were to issue a decree dispersing the rallies, it would be a sentence for my governorship. But according to the regulations, I can’t issue such a decree.

Summary by Grigory Levchenko

Cover photo: The Khabarovsk Territorial Administration’s press service