Two deputies of the State Duma from United Russia, Nikolai Bortsov and Jasharbek Uzdenov, died on the same day. This sad coincidence could not go unnoticed. If Bortsov can be called one of the elders of the Russian deputy corps, then Uzdenov was a newcomer in the State Duma, moreover, a newcomer who set a kind of anti-record. Since his election, he has not attended a single meeting of the Russian parliament.
However, the people’s choice from Karachay-Cherkessia missed the meetings for a more valid reason: Jasharbek Uzdenov was seriously and terminally ill. They do not accidentally become deputies of the State Duma from the United Russia party. The question why it was necessary to elect a terminally ill person to this position arises by itself.
From collective farmers to ministers
The biography of Jasharbek Borisovich Uzdenov looks almost flawless – a local native, a Karachai by nationality, started as a simple worker on his native collective farm, served in the army, went through Afghanistan, and only after that he entered the Rostov Institute of National Economy, having received the specialty “accounting and audit, control and analysis of economic activity”.
There is little information about the years when he was doing business in Rostov-on-Don, but he returned to Karachay-Cherkessia as a very wealthy man, deciding to go into politics. In 2009, he joined the “United Russia” and, having won, elections to the local parliament in a single-mandate district. As a people’s choice, he focused on the environmental agenda, and in 2013 he moved to the civil service, becoming the head of the Department for Environmental Protection and Water Resources of Karachay-Cherkessia.
It is interesting that Uzdenov became an official against the backdrop of a whole series of scandals that erupted around the construction of resorts in the republic and billions of investments disappearing to nowhere.
And three years later, the Arkhyz tourist and recreational special economic zone in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic was named one of the most efficient in Russia. Such data was published by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.
Given the position held by Uzdenov, this success can be credited to his “account”. In March 2020, the department headed by him was reorganized into the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology, and Uzdenov became, accordingly, the republican minister.
Left without Arkhyz
Friends and colleagues assure that it was precisely the fact that Uzdenov managed to achieve some success in the bureaucratic field that allowed him to relatively easily win the primaries, and then the elections to the State Duma, where he won 78.6% of the votes. But instead of working in parliament, he had to spend all his strength on fighting a deadly disease, and, in fact, no one represented Karachay-Cherkessia in the Russian parliament.
According to some telegram channels, the head of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Rashid Temrezov, had high hopes for Jasharbek Uzdenov, who, allegedly, “persuaded” his minister to become a member of the State Duma. For a small republic spread among the ridges of the Caucasus, tourism is the main source of income. And, of course, it was assumed that Uzdenov, having become a deputy of the State Duma, would be able to ensure that investment rain fell on the ski facilities of Karachay-Cherkessia. Perhaps there was a calculation that the most tidbits of the tourist “pie” with the support of Uzdenov could be redistributed in favor of “their own”. First of all, it was about the famous Arkhyz, who was closely watched by a large Rostov businessman Ali Uzdenov, close to the oligarch Yevtushenkov. Some media even “related” Ali and Jasharbek Uzdenovs. Allegedly, the latter lobbied the interests of his “relative” with all his might, intending to leave an attractive asset behind him. True, this is just a version with reference to an unnamed source. Nevertheless, an information attack began on the seriously ill Uzdenov, which ended with Yevtushenkov and Ali Uzdenov losing interest in the resort, AFK Sistema withdrew from the auction, and Arkhyz went to the structures of the ex-governor of the Krasnodar Territory Alexander Tkachev for next to nothing.
Most likely, this alignment was not included in the plans of the republican authorities, who expected that Uzdenov would help to “defend” Arkhyz and he would eventually go to business structures close to the republican authorities, which, in turn, would retain control over the asset. But the illness, and then the death of the deputy, made its own adjustments.
How the new owner of the resort will behave, whether the environmental services of Karachay-Cherkessia will be able to resist him after Uzdenov’s departure, if Tkachev “lays an eye” on the environmental zones located around Arkhyz, is difficult to say. But the fact that with the departure of Uzdenov, the positions of the republican authorities in the Federation have weakened, and the ability to control tourist sites located on the territory of Karachay-Cherkessia has noticeably decreased is a fact.
