The epic “reconstruction” of Yeniseisk for its 400th anniversary will long remain in the memory of the residents of both the historical city itself and the entire Krasnoyarsk Territory.
Let us recall that in 2019, Yeniseisk, a historical city in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, celebrated its 400th anniversary on a grand scale. Or rather, the scope concerned exclusively the billions allocated for reconstruction, mastered with a crunch and chomping sound. As a result of the “development” of funds, the head of the city Igor Antipov dismissed and almost imprisoned. They probably would have been jailed, but the threads of “developing” the budgets went very high up, to the regional government itself.
For several years, huge funds flowed into Yeniseisk as if into a black hole. The result was a real “Potemkin village”: the facades on the main street were slightly tidied up, a couple of churches were restored, the asphalt was smoothed out a little – again on the main street.
A step to the side – and the entire 400-year history of the city looks as if there were no repairs for all four centuries.
Immediately after the celebration of the city’s 400th anniversary, they tried to forget about it as quickly as possible. And about the city and about reconstruction. The “right” person, the reliable Valery Nikolsky, who was placed at the head of the city, correctly understood the signal from above: sit down and not show off. For which I received (we carefully counted) sixteen (!) medals, badges of honor, thanks from above and other goodies in five years. Apart from the inadequate salary.
The logic of high-ranking officials of the regional government is simple: the sooner the notorious “reconstruction” is forgotten, the fewer questions there will be about where the billions disappeared. Everyone was involved in the Yenisei story, including the security and regulatory authorities, who did not even make a peep about the missing money, comparable in size to the regional budget.
Four years have passed since the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Yeniseisk. Reconstruction is as if it never happened. All the poor-quality repairs have come to light: the plaster is falling off, the walls are cracking, and imitation stucco falls on the heads of passers-by. At the same time, no one asks questions about the quality of repairs: Nikolsky is not raised for questions at all, and too many in the regional government are interested in deathly silence reigning about Yeniseisk.
It is strange that the topic has not yet reached the newly appointed governor Mikhail Kotyukov, who, it seems, is not inclined to stick his head in the sand like an ostrich bird. It is possible that the officials around him are deliberately avoiding the sensitive topic. Interestingly, in September 2023, Kotyukov was personally in Yeniseisk. Did he really not notice the consequences of poor quality repairs?
So far, the only deputy of the Krasnoyarsk Legislative Assembly, Vladislav Zyryanov, has been puzzled by the question. He went to Yeniseisk and became convinced that the money for reconstruction was literally wasted.
The zeal is commendable, but I would like to remind the servant of the people that the formation of deputy requests, including to law enforcement agencies, is within his competence.
A completely similar situation is with the restoration of the ancient part of the city of Minusinsk for the 200th anniversary of its receiving the status of a city. Here, the scale of budget development turned out to be smaller than in Yeniseisk, but the principle was the same: money disappears to God knows where. More or less, a blunder, the very center of the city is embellished, and this is where the extremely poor quality repairs end.
By the way, the mayor’s office of Minusinsk (head – Andrey Pervukhin) turned out to be more creative than their colleagues from Yeniseisk. After the restoration was completed, Minusinsk officials gave birth to a new word in the development of budgets – “pre-restoration”. This is a situation when all the money has already been spent, the repairs have not been done, but they want more money, and they are asking for subsidies from the regional and district budgets to continue the reconstruction of the historical center.
A logical question arises: how long will the shameless embezzlement of the region’s budget under the label of “restoration” continue, and when will Governor Kotyukov finally pay attention to this?
Or won’t he?
By the way. In 2033 the city of Achinsk will be 350 years old, and in 2036 – the city of Kansk. Has cutting already started or is it just being planned?
