People's candidate

The head of the Korenevsky district, who had committed a fine, was publicly booed at a meeting with the governor of the Kursk region. “New Europe” found out who its main competitor is

A week ago, a video from a meeting of Kursk refugees with Governor Alexei Smirnov circulated on social networks. A short video filmed on a mobile phone told how the head of the Korenevsky district of the Kursk region, Marina Degtyareva, unsuccessfully boasted to the public about the medal she had received, after which she was booed and allegedly “sent into retirement.” At least, that’s what the pro-Kremlin telegram channel Mash wrote about it. All this happened on November 12 at a meeting of refugees with Governor Smirnov. Under their pressure, he dismissed the head of the Sudzhansky district, Alexander Bogachev, promised to remove Anatoly Drogan, an official of his administration, from public work, and offered Degtyareva to resign for the company. But he only suggested it, suddenly remembering that he had no right to remove elected district heads.

However, the official turned out to be stubborn. She did not accept Smirnov’s offer, and told the propaganda publication RT that she would continue to work. In response, Korenev residents launched a petition that collected almost 2,500 signatures. According to the document, the official “systematically ignored the pressing problems of the area’s residents,” “cannot conduct a constructive dialogue with the population,” and “behaved inappropriately at a meeting with the governor.” As a result, it lost the trust of the population. The authors of the petition proposed dismissing Degtyareva and appointing her instead. O. until the next elections. However, they did not name him.

According to the local publication “Friend for Each Other,” Korenevites nominated at least three candidates for this post. This is the leader of the volunteer group, Maria Skrob, supported by a local functionary of the New People party, the head of the Sheptukhovsky village council, Yuri Tkachev, and the head of the Korenevo village, Roman Pugachev, both United Russia members. All that is known about Tkachev is that he managed to organize the evacuation of more than 200 residents on the very first day of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ entry into the Kursk region. Even less is known about Pugachev. Deserves the most attention

Maria Skrob, known to many refugees for her dedication and personal tragedy: during an attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, her relatives were killed, refusing to evacuate.

In August, Maria told The New York Times about the first days of the Ukrainian army's invasion of the Kursk region. Skrob turned out to be one of those who were in the forefront of taking out the living and dead residents of the Korenevsky district. She told reporters that she helped take the bodies of the dead to the Kursk morgue, and also claimed that Ukrainian soldiers shot at fleeing civilians. “Every car that approached this place was fired upon <...> Everyone tried to get out, but, as you can see, they failed,” NYT quotes her.

She told her personal story to the Z-channel “Readovka”. Together with representatives of this media, she visited the ruins of the house where her parents lived:

“On September 10 there was an arrival at home. On the 13th, our military came in and reported that the house was no longer there. <…> They dug here [shows the place where the house stood]. Here I found them. My mother is a wheelchair user, I found her spine, after the accident she had titanium plates in her spine, that’s how I realized it was her.”

Skrob lost her mother, father and grandmother. In an interview, she suggested that they could have been shot by Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers, and in order to hide their traces, they destroyed the house to the ground. To cope with the loss, Skrob plunged into volunteer work: her group accepts applications from the remaining residents of the area and delivers them the goods they need to survive.

At that same meeting with the governor on November 12, Skrob was also present and, as New Europe found out, she was the main initiator of the “resignation” of the head of the district, Marina Degtyareva. There was no press at this meeting, but on November 16, a few days after the meeting, Maria Skrob published a video on her VK page “The whole truth about the evacuation of the Korenevsky district.”

In this video we see how the activist went to the microphone and addressed the governor with a long speech, in which she accused the head of the district, Degtyareva, of “abandoning her fellow villagers.” According to Skrob, people learned about the invasion from social networks, the evacuation was not announced, and the district administration was silent. On August 6, Degtyareva allegedly advised border residents not to panic, to leave for a couple of days or wait in the basement. At the same time, she left the area on the same day.

“When a circus arrives, the whole area knows about it, cars with megaphones drive around, they knock people’s heads out, that the circus has arrived, come. When people needed to evacuate, everyone was silent. Degtyareva left the Korenevsky district and never got in touch again. She is in Kursk, safe. When meeting with residents of the Korenevsky district, she pretended that she did not know them, ” said Maria .

According to her, on August 6–7, there was no longer Internet access in the area, which means that people simply would not have been able to find out about the need to evacuate. On August 9, volunteers independently organized the evacuation, and 665 people were taken out in their cars. According to the activist, the head of the district promised to send buses for people, but they never arrived. The speaker accused the official of the fact that “dozens of people died through her fault, hundreds were captured.” “Many died, including my parents. I raked up their corpses with my own hands,” Skrob said. To applause, she demanded that Degtyareva be dismissed and held accountable for the failure of the evacuation.

“Rise up, all those who are in favor of removing Marina Vyacheslavovna from her position,” she called. The whole room stood up, then people started chanting: “Suspend! Suspend! Suspend!

Twenty minutes later, Degtyareva went up on stage to at least somehow justify herself. But the head of the district could not say anything convincing in her defense. “Your comrades-in-arms are turning to me with the words ‘help me, but don’t tell Marina Vyacheslavovna,’” her opponent finished off. The governor tried to save his colleague, but was unable to. He stated that “the audience is emotional,” and suggested that Degtyareva leave of her own free will, because he does not have the right to fire her himself ( although this did not stop him from “firing” the odious Bogachev two hours before. - Author’s note ).

Then the head of the district took the microphone and made a last attempt to retain her seat: “Dear Korenevites, from your speeches I realized that the procedure ( probably removing her from her position - author’s note ) has been prepared for a long time and, of course, it will be successful , but I ask you to listen. Let’s start, of course, with the medal that was given not only to me, but to all the heads of the border regions...” The packed hall whistled and hooted. The governor immediately took the microphone away from the official and asked her to leave the stage.

After an embarrassing situation, Smirnov invited Skrob to a personal meeting the day after the event. “Tomorrow I will evacuate the area,” she refused sharply. We do not know whether this meeting took place, but Maria told reporters that she did not intend to take the post of head of the district: “Believe me, this is an erroneous conclusion from the media.” After which she stopped responding to messages.