The construction ruined: What did the adviser to the governor of the Ulyanovsk region and the mayor of Dimitrovgrad spend money on, suspected of bribery

A corruption scandal is raging in the Ulyanovsk region: an adviser to the head of the region and the mayor of Dimitrovgrad were detained on suspicion of receiving a large bribe. What is known about them?

The mayor of Dimitrovgrad was detained with shooting

Right in the courtyard of the Administration of the Ulyanovsk city of Dimitrovgrad, a local mayor was detained with a fight Andrey Bolshakov. He barricaded himself in his SUV and tried to drive away. The security forces had to break the glass of the car and shoot into the air to calm him down. This scene was observed by dozens of residents of the surrounding houses.

A criminal case has already been initiated against the mayor of Dimitrovgrad for bribery on an especially large scale, he faces up to 15 years in prison. According to preliminary data, he received a kickback of more than a million rubles during the construction of an object being built as part of a federal national project, he had this money with him at the time of his detention. Perhaps we are talking about the federal highway Ulyanovsk – Dimitrovgrad.

The governor of the Ulyanovsk region did not wait for the results of the investigation and has already fired Andrei Bolshakov due to the loss of confidence.

On the same morning, according to the SHOT telegram channel, an adviser to the governor of the Ulyanovsk region on construction issues was detained in the same case. Igor Edel and his assistant. For now, the security forces prefer not to talk about Edel – he is a political heavyweight in the Ulyanovsk region.

Andrei Bolshakov in handcuffs

Mayor Andrey Bolshakov

In the Administration of Dimitrovgrad, 35-year-old Andrey Bolshakov worked from his very majority. While still a student, he had an internship in the legal department, then he headed the Committee on the housing and communal complex, then he became the deputy head of the city for housing and communal services, and a year and a half ago he was elected mayor. The governor then fully supported him, calling him “a young, efficient and energetic leader.”

Now former mayor of Dimitrovgrad Andrey Bolshakov

According to the latest published declaration, in 2021 Andrei Bolshakov earned about 1.2 million rubles, and his wife – only 120 thousand. The official owns an apartment of 72 square meters and a Chinese crossover Haval Jolion. His registration address is a modest parental home in the private sector of Dimitrovgrad.

Becoming the mayor, Andrey Bolshakov cleaned his social networks from old photos. But the Internet remembers everything. In remote photographs, he looks like a man from a simple family, an exemplary son, an excellent student and neat in his first still petty bureaucratic job. By the way, he has two higher educations: the Faculty of Law of the Ural State University and the Faculty of Public Administration of the RANEPA. From his selfie it is clear that, having entered the civil service, he began to travel, rent expensive foreign cars and afford restaurants. He has a wife and a child.

Andrey Bolshakov started with a job in the legal department

Andrey Bolshakov at work in the administration

Andrey Bolshakov on vacation

Governor’s Advisor Igor Edel

The second defendant in the bribe case is 67-year-old Igor Edel. He was a deputy of the State Duma of the 5th convocation from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the 2000s and vice-governor of the Tambov region in the 10s. Edel also headed a number of large road construction government agencies: the federal Uprdor Rossiya, the Moscow region Ramensky Avtodor, the Tambov Highway Administration. He was also twice a technical candidate for the post of head of Solnechnogorsk near Moscow. He currently has two official positions. He is a member of the board of directors of Ulyanovsk Airport JSC and holds the chair of the adviser to the governor of the Ulyanovsk region on the construction of infrastructure issues.

Advisor to the Governor of the Ulyanovsk Region Igor Edel

There are declarations of Igor Edel for 2009-2018 in the public domain. During this time, he and his wife earned only 10.5 million rubles. Formally, Igor Edel never had his own car; for the last decade he has not even had his own home. It was registered in his wife’s three-room apartment in a typical socket in the south of Moscow. Under the windows there is a noisy highway and the valley of the Chertanovka river. Cost up to 20 million rubles.

Perhaps Igor Edel lives behind a high blank fence in the village of Turitsino on the territory of the Solnechnogorsk urban district near Moscow. At the entrance there is a massive gate crowned with the figure of a knight. Behind them are several mansions erected in different architectural styles. One of them with a dome looks like a planetarium. Guests are greeted by bronze cats and well-groomed coniferous alleys. Around the forest, fields and the river Istra. Such real estate cannot be evaluated due to the lack of analogues: probably, we are talking about hundreds of millions of rubles.

Entrance to the proposed estate of Igor Edel. Visible mansion with a dome

At the entrance to another mansion there are bronze cats

Third mansion on site

Home ownership from a bird’s eye view

According to the papers, the land under this household is not owned by Edel himself, but by his family. It is difficult to determine the area: the boundaries of the plots were repeatedly changed, merged and deregistered. It follows from the registers that this is at least 70 acres, but, judging by satellite images, many times more. There is currently some massive construction going on in the area. Interestingly, as of 2010, only five people lived in Turitsino. It seems that the estate of Igor Edel’s family occupied almost half of the entire village.

Entrance to the household of Igor Edel

According to some reports, Edel’s children use cars that are registered to other people. For example, a 36-year-old son is included in the insurance of an Audi A8L premium sedan (a new one costs about 18 million rubles), issued to a certain Alexei Aslanyan. Meanwhile, the latter headed Dorozhnik, a company that signed state contracts for 43 million rubles for the repair of roads in the Tambov region, when Igor Edel worked there.

And the 45-year-old daughter drove the Toyota Land Cruer 200 SUV, owned by Uprdor Rossiya, where Igor Edel also worked.
Recently, a luxurious car – the new Mercedes Benz G-class SUV (from 20 million rubles) – was posted on the photo in their networks by Edel’s 24-year-old grandson. It can be assumed that the legendary Gelik is parked at the family estate in Turitsino.

The car from the social network of the grandson of Igor Edel

The heirs of Edel are often and for a long time abroad. The son, for example, studied at the Oxford School in London, after the start of the SVO he got himself a Kazakh phone number and, possibly, settled in Kazakhstan. The grandson now lives in Florida, where he studies at the elite tennis school in Boca Raton. Judging by the guy’s social networks, he does not deny himself anything, rents expensive housing, rents luxury cars and even takes selfies with Vin Diesel.

The life of the grandson of Igor Edel (second from right) in the States