The corruption “card file” of the Tunkinsky district of Buryatia has been replenished with another high-profile case, this time related to the illegal disposal of an illegal landfill in the village of Taloe. Director of the local national park, Bair Baiminov, risks going to prison for ten years due to abuse of power. Babr understands the situation.
As soon as corruption does not appear in Buryatia. This includes bribery, nepotism, and money laundering through various types of illegal use of power. Local officials and businessmen have especially fallen in love with making money from environmental problems, of which there are many in the republic, and the state is ready to spend millions of rubles to solve them. In particular, this picture is observed in the “garbage” business. One of the striking examples is the disposal of an illegal landfill in the heart of the Tunka Valley, which cunning schemers also could not ignore.
A huge unauthorized landfill in the Tunkinsky district was formed as a result of many years of indiscriminate dumping of waste. Its area at the time of liquidation reached about 20 thousand square meters, which is equivalent to 20 football fields. And this chaos is happening right in the Tunkinsky National Park, in a specially protected natural area.
Various scandals have repeatedly arisen around the ill-fated landfill. At first, the local administration ignored the huge piles of garbage for a long time. Later, in 2021, the problem was highlighted in the federal media, at the same time social activists and environmentalists proposed several ways to dispose of accumulated waste, including recycling. Of course, none of this was implemented.
Then they wanted to get rid of the landfill by arson: in the fall of 2021, the landfill began to burn, poisoning local residents with toxic smoke. And before that, an unscrupulous contractor entered the territory, which is where the story of the garbage mafia begins with the participation of the director of the Tunkinsky National Park Baira Bayminova.
Fire at a landfill near the village of Taloe, December 2022Shortly before the fire at the landfill, it turned out that the auction for its liquidation was held illegally: a Tomsk contracting company JSC Polygon won the tender by falsifying documents about past experience in working with landfills. In addition, the waste disposal itself was subject to many violations.
After social activists contacted the environmental prosecutor’s office, the deputy director of the national park received a warning not to accept or pay for work if the terms of the contract were not met. However, more than one contractor was involved in illegal execution of the contract.
The environmental prosecutor's office also revealed violations on the part of the management of the Tunkinsky National Park itself: officials allowed a contractor whose bid was subject to rejection from the auction to participate in the auction to liquidate the landfill. As a result, the director of the national park, Bair Baiminov, received a fine of 45 thousand rubles. This was only a small part of the punishment that awaited Baiminov: on June 10, criminal proceedings were initiated against him. criminal case under Article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) (abuse of official powers resulting in grave consequences).
Bair BaiminovAccording to the investigation, to eliminate the illegal dump in 2022, the Tunkinsky National Park was allocated a subsidy as part of the federal project “Preservation of Lake Baikal” and the national project “Ecology”. The director of the park illegally approved auction documentation with a number of defects that did not allow us to accurately determine the volume of work to be performed.
Moreover, he entered into a government contract with a contractor, who ultimately removed waste from the landfill in a smaller volume than was provided for by the funding.
During the investigation, the issue of choosing a preventive measure against the director should soon be decided. So far, it is only known that this criminal case is connected with cases previously initiated against the deputy director of the national park – Vladimir Marganov.
Vladimir Marganov
