Ungrateful and uncultured
After a year of studying 50 volumes of the case, the Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow came to the conclusion: the former Minister of Culture of Crimea Arina Novoselskaya guilty of receiving a bribe from the contractor, Meander LLC (beneficiary Yevgeny Yarmosh), in the amount of more than 25 million rubles for general patronage during the restoration of the state center for children’s theater arts in Simferopol. After the arrest of Arina Novoselskaya, the construction of the puppet theater in Simferopol came to a standstill.
Everything froze
At the construction site of the puppet theater in Simferopol today there is not a single person or mechanism, the object is abandoned a hundred meters from the building of the Crimean parliament. A musician by training, she was the artistic director of the Crimean Academic Puppet Theatre. When Crimea became part of Russia in 2014, the first government Sergei Aksenov formed on February 28th. Arina (according to Vera’s passport) Novoselskaya entered its composition as the Minister of Culture. Evil tongues said that she received the position not without the connections of her husband, a criminal lawyer, to whom Aksenov allegedly could have some obligations. Be that as it may, by 2021, only Novoselskaya retained her ministerial chair from that first composition of the Council of Ministers – even Aksyonov stopped combining the posts of prime minister and head of Crimea, having formally left the government.
All these years, the Crimea was allocated colossal money for the “cultural revolution”, which they never even dreamed of – for the repair and restoration of cultural heritage sites. They were going to put in order the Khan’s Palace, the Big and Small Mithridates Stairs, the Swallow’s Nest castle (even a restaurant), renovate the Vorontsov and Livadia palaces, Chekhov’s White Dacha in Yalta, fix the building of the Art Museum in Simferopol (the building of the officers’ assembly of the 51st Lithuanian Infantry shelf). But since 2015 started some mischief with money. They either got lost in Moscow, then, leaving there, did not reach the Crimea.
“Meander” – a favorite
Some of the most notable and expensive contracts for restoration went to firm “Meander” from Saint-Petersburg. In particular, the Khan’s Palace in Bakhchisarai is the only object of the Crimean Tatar palace architecture in the world. In the course of five years of restoration, the total cost of restoring a federal cultural heritage site funded by the state program reached almost 2 billion rubles. However, remakes appeared in the ensemble of the palace, the deadlines for completion were constantly postponed, and one of the walls of the Secular building cracked. Already there was noticedthat Arina Novoselskaya patronizes Meander.
In 2021, Novoselskaya solemnly announced that “repair and restoration work at the object of cultural heritage of federal significance “Stairs Big and Small Mithridatsky” has been fully completed, not forgetting to emphasize that this was done on behalf of the President of the Russian Federation. This seemingly happy ending was preceded by several scandals, including the dismissal Alexandra DidenkoDeputy Chairman of the State Committee for Heritage of Crimea.
The reconstruction of the Mithridates stairs in Kerch started in September 2019, the cost of the work amounted to more than a billion rubles. The contract for the development of the project for the reconstruction of this symbol of Kerch was won by the same Meander LLC. Then, with a close look at the quality of the work, it turned out that instead of granite, the steps were made of local limestone, and the sculptures of griffins (mythical winged creatures with the body of a lion and the head of a vulture, symbolizing the indivisibility of heaven and earth, good and evil, light and darkness) are replete with anatomical inaccuracies and also made from the wrong material.
Arina Novoselskaya, demonstrating the results of the restoration of cultural heritage to the Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Maxim Reshetnikov, explained:
Something went wrong in Alupka: soon after the completion of work in the Vorontsov Palace, the newly installed roof could not withstand the first rainfall, and some of the premises were flooded. After the reconstruction of the house-museum of A.P. Chekhov in Yalta, this roof leaked during the rains, some halls were flooded.
The final
All this, including a loud obscenity at the republican meeting on the construction industry, was forgiven the cultural member of the government. She came under the hot hand of justice at the suggestion of a seemingly proven companion – all the same “Meander”.
“Meandra”, among other things, carried out the reconstruction of the building of the Crimean State Center for Children’s Theatrical Art in Simferopol (the former puppet theater, where Mrs. Novoselskaya worked). Testimony against her was given by the owner of “Meander” himself after, together with the general director of the company Elena Zavadskaya he was detained by operatives in September 2020. Yarmosh and Zavadskaya were accused of embezzling 191 million rubles allocated from the budget for the reconstruction of the building of the St. Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory.
As follows from the case file, in the spring of 2018, Novoselskaya received a bribe in the amount of 25.8 million rubles from the beneficiary of Meander LLC, Yevgeny Yarmosh. Court installedA: The minister lobbied for the interests of the company. It is assumed that thanks to her, Meander in 2018 received a contract for the construction of a children’s center on the site of a small old puppet theater in the amount of 1 billion rubles.
According to Yevgeny Yarmosh, the beneficiary of Meander, Novoselskaya herself offered a lucrative deal: he gives her 25 million rubles and helps her buy an apartment in Moscow, and in return she does not interfere with construction in Simferopol and helps the company. Yarmosh said that he understood: otherwise, the official would prevent Meander from fulfilling the contract.
The entrepreneur transferred Novoselskaya the required amount, and she used it to buy an apartment in Bolshoy Kozlovsky Lane. Novoselskaya receiving a bribe categorically denies, claiming that Yarmosh really helped her buy an apartment, but she returned to him all the money she borrowed from him. And later they had a conflict, and the entrepreneur allegedly threatened to take revenge.
However, the court found her guilty, Novoselskaya was deprived of the title of Honored Worker of Culture, she was forbidden to hold positions in the authorities in the field of education for the next 15 years. In addition, she must pay a fine of 128 million rubles.
The defense of the convict does not agree with the verdict and promises to appeal it.
