Last weekend, Moscow not only celebrated another anniversary of the capital, but also held elections for municipal deputies. The election campaign, as usual, became the catalyst for new revelations and accusations of corruption among Moscow officials. However, the wave of public actions and exposure of corruption schemes, it seems, this time will not go unnoticed and it is worth waiting for resignations and high-profile cases, including criminal ones.
One of the central topics of speeches by public figures and candidates for deputies is the persistent destruction of the ecology and environment of the capital. Entire parks, alleys and green areas are cut down, without documents and permits and with the complete connivance and silence of municipal departments, namely the Department of Nature Management and Environmental Protection, headed by Anton Kulbachevsky…
In general, the relevant authorities had many questions to the official before, however, someone’s unknown hand helped Anton Olegovich avoid trouble. including for “set up” the mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyaninrelated to the transfer of 1.4 billion rubles to Gazprom structures (the money was allegedly incorrectly credited as payments for environmental damage, and under this guise “returned” to business structures).
To date, the piggy bank of dirty deeds, indirectly and directly related to Kulbachevsky, is already packed to the brim. And, according to sources from the building at Tverskaya, 13, the days of the official as the chief ecologist of Moscow are numbered. Too many questions have accumulated, both from regulatory authorities and the public. About part (only a small part!) of these claims and in general about who Anton Kulbachevsky really is – below in the text.
Given the gathering clouds, the official has lately gone into the shadows and rarely makes contact with residents and in general with the public. As a result, social networks remained the only chance for the residents of the capital to somehow get through to Kulbachevsky. One of the latest such appeals is a cry from the heart from those who live on Dmitry Ulyanov Street. There, workers began to cut down perennial trees on the boulevard, despite their special status.
Why does your department exist? if anyone can cut down an entire boulevard without permission? residents are outraged. Kulbachevsky did not react to this appeal (as did the others, by the way) – in the meantime, according to eyewitnesses, they managed to cut down all the larches and cypresses on the boulevard. Such a stubborn disregard for the interests of residents for the sake of someone is not clear – what is not a reason to appeal to the prosecutor’s office? Moreover, such a “tail” for a high-ranking official has been trailing for a long time, almost his entire successful career.
Anton Kulbachevsky headed the Department of Nature Management and Environmental Protection of Moscow in 2010. Looking at his biography, it is impossible not to pay attention to the official’s propensity for commercial activities. He began working in commercial structures immediately after the army, in 1991. How and what exactly could make money in the early 90s, a 24-year-old strong guy who had just come from the army, can be easily assumed … According to available data, even after becoming a researcher in the laboratory of the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry in 1996, Kulbachevsky did not leave business.
In the civil service, over the past twelve years as head of the Department of Environmental Management of Moscow, Anton Kulbachevsky was able to fully demonstrate his business qualities. And even receive the Order of the Great Russian Scientist and Thinker Nikita Moiseev “For Saving Life on Earth”.
Why exactly is he given this award?
And here, for example, for the exclusion from the list of specially protected natural areas of the Kosinsky fields. For what? Of course, as in other similar cases – for commercial development.
Or what is the situation with sanitary cleaning of the Losiny Ostrov National Park, similar to a banal cut of budgetary funds. In 2020, a strange scheme was revealed. The bottom line is that a grant from the mayor of Moscow was allocated for the cleaning of the national park, which was received by a certain public organization. Which regularly received the money, but did not do anything – all the work was carried out by employees of the subordinate mayor’s office and the departments, Zhilischnik and other MUPs.
In whose deep pockets did the millions of our Sergei Semenovich Sobyanin then settle? Residents and public figures stated that they had repeatedly reported such violations to the department headed by our Kulbachevsky, but no response was received at all.
Another sad fact – a few years before the scandal with the national park, inspectors from the Chamber of Control and Accounts discovered the disappearance of 6 billion rubles from the Moscow budgetintended for the maintenance of urban landfills. As the PCB pointed out at the time, the relevant work was in fact either not carried out at all or was carried out with such violations that the “ennobled” landfills began to pollute the environment even more actively. At the same time, officials sometimes (for example, in the most infamous landfill – Salaryevskaya) calmly, in black and white, included the costs of buying apartments in the reclamation estimate!
“But why didn’t Mr. Kulbachevsky react to this in any way? Is there corruption here? Maybe he has his own interest in this situation? ” – bloggers and the media asked, in general, rhetorical questions. Kulbachevsky was not even demoted after that!
Conclusions, given the entrepreneurial vein of Kulbachevsky, which we spoke about above, suggest themselves … But this is not all.
Kulbachevsky was also noted in the seizure of land for the construction of a highway in Kuskovo, former estate of Counts Sheremetyevs in the east of Moscow. At the time of the work, that area was not just an urban forest, but also an object of cultural heritage, and a planned specially protected natural area – that is, in fact, it had a triple protected status. This did not prevent the builders from calmly shredding Kuskovo at will. And Kulbachevsky, meanwhile, reassured those who were indignant – the territory of the park would not suffer. How it all ended is no secret to anyone – despite all the petitions and even the tent camp of environmental activists, the builders calmly cut down the 12 hectares of park they needed. Whether there was corruption there, whether Anton Kulbachevsky received his “profit” (such a cover, as a rule, is provided only for big money) – we don’t know …
The reaction of the head of the Department of Nature Management and Environmental Protection Kulbachevsky to the claims about the strange greening of the city has already become a real meme. Residents of the capital drew attention to the fact that green spaces regularly disappear from the streets, are transplanted from one place to another. And they do it, judging by the uniform, public utilities workers. However, Kulbachevsky, in all seriousness, convinces public figures that shrubs and seedlings are transplanted and stolen … Muscovites themselves.
But what is most terrible, Kulbachevsky demonstrates such a cynical approach even where the health of Moscow residents directly depends on his decision. A few years ago, he went public a high-profile scandal associated with a waste incineration plant, the owner (according to other sources, the tenant) of which was the son of the then Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika. It turned out that his activities poisoned and poisoned the inhabitants of at least two metropolitan districts – Eastern and South-Eastern. For a long time, people in villages and microdistricts complained about the round-the-clock suffocating smell in the air – sometimes it smelled sharply of some kind of chemicals, sometimes the smell was like rotten meat and eggs.
In the emissions of a private “factory”, experts found not only a multiple (tens of thousands of times!) Exceeding the permissible amount of mercury, but also the presence of a very dangerous nitrogen dioxide gas, lead compounds, carcinogens and mutagens, more than a ton of phenol and formaldehyde, etc. – in total, he already managed to “give out” about 530 tons of harmful and toxic substances into the city air. Moreover, it turned out that this plant was built with gross violations of SanPiNs – at a distance of only 600-800 meters from residential buildings.
And when Rostekhnadzor conducted an inspection, it turned out that even technological equipment for waste incineration is used there without a license. The supervisory authority through the court tried to suspend the activities of the ill-fated “poisoner”, but he eventually limited himself to a fine. So the plant continues to work quietly. And few people know that it was Kulbachevsky Anton Olegovich who initially signed the permit for this plant (in fact, provided this fuming monster with a complete ecological “alibi”) Is there corruption here or just official negligence?
Another dangerous precedent for Moscow residents is that city streets have recently been sprinkled with a new reagent based on magnesium chloride in winter. Even the manufacturers themselves admit that this powder contains up to 70 elements of the periodic table: mercury, selenium, cadmium, fluorine … And it doesn’t matter that all this dangerous muck also settles as a result of light Muscovites. One of the subsidiaries of the Rusal holding of the notorious billionaire Oleg Deripaska is supplying the reagent to the streets of Moscow. How did this project get an environmental review and approval from Moscow’s chief ecologist Kulbachevsky?
“Not bad”, in a word, it turns out environmental protection … According to information from the Moscow City Hall, despite a lot of claims and issues of a corruption nature, Anton Kulbachevsky demonstrates strong confidence and optimism. Receives awards…
Again, what are the medals for, you ask?
For mass clearing of parks and groves for development? For the construction of new landfills and waste incineration plants under the noses of the inhabitants of the capital? Or for commercial talents and the ability to circumvent laws so that they do not interfere with businesses to implement projects worth billions of rubles?
But what about the health of Moscow residents and their constitutional right to a healthy environment? Is it worth the money that comes from environmentally harmful projects and ends up in various pockets?
This question, I think, does not matter to Anton Kulbachevsky.
