Roman Starovoit accustoms the people of Kursk to the smell of ammonia

In Kursk, law enforcement officers came with searches to the apartment and office of local activist Tatyana Bondarenko, who opposes the construction of a nitrogen fertilizer plant in the city. According to her, the inspectors do not hide the fact that their activity is connected with her position regarding this construction site. Tatyana is convinced that with the advent of an ammonia plant in Kursk, the city will become the territory of an ecological disaster. However, Governor Roman Starovoit and the majority of local deputies clearly do not share her concern.

Chemistry and life

In February, it became known that Togliatti PJSC KuibyshevAzot plans to build a complex for the production of mineral fertilizers from natural gas in the Kursk region. Specifically, we are talking about the site of the former Khimvolokno plant, owned by the investor Kurskkhimvolokno LLC and located within the city.

“The cost of the project should be more than 75 billion rubles, which will provide about 200 new jobs. The enterprise intends to produce ammonia in the amount of 200 thousand tons per year, carbamide in the amount of 800 thousand tons per year and a carbamide-ammonia mixture in the amount of 365 thousand tons per year, ”according to the document, which Tatyana Bondarenko published on her VKontakte page .

To implement this project, it is necessary to build a high-pressure main gas pipeline from the tie-in point to the site boundary, the same document says later. And considering that according to SNiP it is not allowed to lay sections of the main gas pipeline through the territory of settlements, the Kursk authorities, as we see, proposed a solution that is elegant, like the hands of an aristocrat, and reliable, like a Swiss watch: to change the borders of Kursk, cutting off an area of ​​8.7 hectares , where the site of the former Khimvolokno plant is located, and thus move the chemical production out of the city. The fact that the dangerous enterprise will be located just a few meters from residential buildings, kindergartens and schools, the deputies of the KSC, it seems, is not particularly worried. By a majority of votes, they approved the proposed decision of the authorities.

Tatyana Bondarenko, a well-known public figure in Kursk, opposed this project. The activist launched a campaign on social networks to attract the attention of the public and top officials of the city and region administration to the problem of building an ammonia plant and called on the people of Kursk to actively write letters on this topic to the websites of government agencies and decision makers. On February 28, Tatyana personally took the notification to the Kursk administration about a public event – a rally against the construction of a chemical plant, planned for March 11. However, the city authorities banned the rally, citing the high (yellow) level of terrorist threat in the border region. According to Tatyana, after reading the document referred to by the city administration, she had even more questions. For example, “what was the legal form of the rally at the gates of Khimvolokno, to which Roman Starovoit, the governor of the Kursk region, invited everyone,” she asks.

No? What if I find it?

However, the matter did not end with a simple ban on the rally. On the eve of the failed event, Tatiana Bondarenko’s office and apartment were searched.

“Having come to an organization that does not exist, on a completely different criminal case, in no way connected with my work, without my presence, the investigator began a search with attesting witnesses. There was a person in the office who was in charge of the hotline, I emphasize that neither I nor the representatives of the company were present, in such conditions it is simply illegal to start a search. The materials on which the search was started are hidden and I was not allowed to get acquainted with them, even to read them. Although at a minimum, they are required to provide a search warrant. They forbade inviting a lawyer, ”Tatiana said on social networks.

The day after the searches, the social activist called the investigator and asked when she would be invited for interrogation. However, the investigator replied to Tatyana that she had nothing to do with the case in which the searches were being carried out, there were no questions for her, and no one was going to interrogate her. “Then what did they do yesterday?” Tatyana is surprised.

“In the Kursk region, a criminal case is being investigated, initiated in March 2022, on the grounds of the elements of crimes provided for by Articles Part 2, Clause 1, Article 173.1 (illegal creation of a legal entity) and Part 2, Art. 172 (illegal banking activity) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. <...> On March 10, 12 additional searches were carried out in residential and non-residential premises of persons belonging to the close circle of the organizer of the criminal group. The received items and documents that are important in documenting the criminal activities of the defendants are being investigated, ”the press service of the local police commented on what is happening.

“Pros and cons”

But still, back to the ammonia plant itself. It should be noted that there was no complete unanimity in the ranks of the KSC deputies on the issue of its construction and changing the boundaries of the city for the sake of building a gas pipeline to the enterprise. According to the local publication Sekunda, a dispute broke out at the meeting of the CSC on this issue, and as a result, three deputies voted against (one from the SRZP and two from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation), four abstained (one from the New People, one from the Pensioners’ Party and two from the Liberal Democratic Party). ). Representatives of United Russia voted for the scandalous project.

“There is no need to overly politicize the situation. We are not talking about building or not building a plant. We are talking about the construction of a gas pipeline,” Vladimir Tokarev, chairman of the KSC, said at the meeting.

Should this statement be understood in such a way that the issue of building a nitrogen fertilizer plant in the immediate vicinity of residential buildings has already been resolved? And what does politics have to do with it, if we are talking about the ecology of the city and the safety of its inhabitants? An example is the capital of Lebanon, Beirut, where in the summer of 2020 an ammonium nitrate explosion took place in the port, which claimed more than 200 lives and left about 300,000 people homeless. Maybe you should still learn from the mistakes of others?

Tatyana Bondarenko, apparently, was not intimidated. The activist does not intend to stop and will continue to defend the right of Kursk residents to breathe clean air, as well as defend her own rights. At the moment, she sent a complaint about the illegality of the searches to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Igor Krasnov, and filed an application with the court. The date of the meeting has not yet been set.

“There are things about which it is impossible to remain silent. And the situation around “Khimvolokna” or “KurskAzot” in my eyes is exactly like that. The more I immerse myself in the situation, the more injustice around me, the more I want to achieve legality, and on all counts, ”Tatiana commented on her page.