Governor’s team SverdlovEvgenia Kuvaysheva from the oblast widely and actively advertised the project of the tourist and recreational cluster “Mountain Belaya” in Nizhny Tagil.
But in the end, the project was delayed. Initially, the project was estimated at 5 billion rubles, but there was no money in the regional budget for the Belaya Mountain. The federal center is also not interested in the project, because it is being implemented very slowly. So, only the procedure for transferring land into the category allowing development lasted three years.
In 2018, it was assumed that some of the Belaya Mountain ski slopes would start operating as early as 2021. However, finances were spent so irrationally that it is too early to talk about the launch of ski slopes. For some reason, most of the money allocated for the project went to its advertising. Officials attracted well-known bloggers to cooperate, including Ilya Varlamov. According to available data, in 2020, out of 2 billion rubles, only 107 million were received for the project.
Now Sverdlovsk officials are planning to involve the state corporation “Tourism. RF”. But a prerequisite for the participation of the corporation is the co-financing of the project by the region. The head of the Department of Tourism of the Sverdlovsk Region, Elvira Tukanova, has already admitted that there is no money for the Belaya Mountain in the budget. In 2022, no more than 122 million rubles will be allocated for the project. With Yekaterinburg having to prepare for the Universiade in 2023, the future of Gora Belaya becomes more uncertain.
HR POLICY OF KUVAISHEV
The team of the governor of the Sverdlovsk region Evgeny Kuvaishev has long had questions. Many of his subordinates have already been “visited” by the security forces. In 2021, employees of the TFR and FSB carried out searches in the administration of the Nizhneserginsky urban settlement. They dealt with a criminal case on abuse of power. So, in 2007, municipal officials leased a land plot on which a solid waste landfill was located. The media called entrepreneur Stepan Postik the tenant of the site. The damage to the forest fund from the activities of the illegal solid waste landfill was estimated at 1 billion rubles. Claims could also arise against the head of the municipality, Andrei Chekasin, because he had previously been interrogated in another case. It was about corruption schemes in which officials were suspected.
In 2020, the head of the economic department, Sergei Kantyshev, was fired in the Baikalsky District. It turned out that he patronized the Spetsstroy company. This firm was registered to his wife, and she regularly received large municipal contracts. The then head of the district, Alexei Zhukov, seemed to know about Kantyshev’s activities. However, Zhukov later resigned. And the acting head of the district, Galina Borozdina, was suspected of involvement in an official forgery.
